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THE HOUSING OF THE 
UNSKILLED WAGE EARNER 



Hmcrican Social proaress Series 

EDITED BY 

SAMUEL McCUNE LINDSAY, Ph.D., LL.D., 
Columbia University 

A series of handbooks for the student and gen- 
eral reader, giving the results of the newer social 
thought and of recent scientific investigations of 
the facts of American social life and institutions. 
Each volume about 200 pages. 

1. The New Basis of Civilization. By Simon 

N. Patten, Ph.D., LL.D., University of 
Pennsylvania. $1.00. 

2. Standards of Public Morality. By Arthur 

Twining Hadley, Ph.D., LL.D., President of 
Yale University. $1.00. 

3. Misery and Its Causes. By Edward T. De- 

vine, Ph.D., LL.D., Columbia University. 

$1.25. 

4. Governmental Action for Social Welfare. 

By Jeremiah W. Jenks, Ph.D., LL.D., Cor- 
nell University. $1.00. 

5. Social Insurance. A Program of Social 

Reform. By Henry Rogers Seager, Ph.D., 
Columbia University. $1.00. 

6. Social Reform and the Constitution. By 

Frank J. Goodnow, LL.D., Columbia Univer- 
sity. $1.50. 

7. The Church and Society. By R. Fulton 

Cutting, LL.D. $1.25. 

8. The Juvenile Court and the Community. 

By Thomas D. Eliot, M.A., Ph.D. $1.25. 

9. The City Worker's World in America. By 

Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch. $1.25. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Hmertcan Social progregg levies 

The Housing of the 
Unskilled Wage Earner 

AMERICA'S NEXT PROBLEM 



BY 

EDITH ELMER WOOD 



I13eto gotb 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1919 



AU rights reserved 






COPTBIGHT, 1919 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyEed. Published, June, 1919 



JUL 23 \m 



e)CI.A530339 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The writer wishes to express her thanks to Mr. 
Lawrence Veiller, Secretary and Director of the National 
Housing Association, for permission to consult its files, 
which were of especial value in the preparation of Chap- 
ters III and IV and Appendix A. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION page 

1. Housing and the War i 

2. Purpose of This Study 6 

3. Extent of Bad Housing Conditions in the United 

States 7 

(i) Evidence from Housing Surveys 7 

(2) Evidence from Building Costs 8 

A — The American Standard in Housing . . 8 
B — Economic Aspects of the American Stand- 
ard 12 

(3) Confirmation Supplied by Racial Make-Up . . 17 

4. The Housing Problem and Its Solution .... 18 

(i) Two-fold Character of the Problem .... 18 

(2) Two-fold Character of the Solution .... 19 

(3) Necessity of Solving the Housing Problem . . 26 

CHAPTER II 

HOUSING CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 

1. Housing History of New York ....... 29 

(i) The Settlements and Jacob Riis . . . . . 29 

(2) Earliest Mentions 30 

(3) First Official Investigation — Legislative Com- 

mittee of 18^/ 31 

(4) Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public 

Health, 1865 35 

(5) Tenement House Commission of 1884 .... 38 

(6) Tenement House Committee of 18^4 .... 40 

(7) Tenement House Commission of 1900 ... 42 

2. Housing History of Other Localities .... 45 

(i) Washington, D. C 46 



Contents 

PACE 

(2) Boston 50 

(3) San Francisco 51 

(4) Baltimore 52 

(5) Richmond 53 

(6) Chicago 54 

(7) St. Louis 54 

(8) PhUadelphia 55 

(9) Cincinnati 57 

(10) Providence 57 

(11) Columbus, 57 

(12) Grand Rapids 57 

(13) Texas 58 

(14) Minneapolis 58 

(15) Newhurgh, N. Y 58 

CHAPTER III 

RESTRICTIVE HOUSING LEGISLATION IN THE 
UNITED STATES 

1. Restrictive and Constructive Legislation ... 60 

2. Provisions of the Veiller Model Housing Law . . 64 

(i) Requirements for New Dwellings 66 

A — Light and Ventilation 66 

B — Sanitation 69 

C — Fire Protection 69 

(2) Requirements for Existing Dwellings .... 70 

(3) Maintenance 72 

(4) Requirements and Remedies 73 

3. Tenement House Laws and Administration in New 

York 75 

(i) Tenement House Act of 186/ 76 

(2) Tenement House Act of i8yp yy 

(3) Tenement House Act of 1887 77 

(4) Tenemeyit House Act of 1895 77 

(5) Tenement House Act of ipoi 77 

4. States with Tenement House or Housing Laws . 80 

(i) Pennsylvania 82 

A — Housing Law for ist Class Cities 

B — Tenement House Law for 2nd Class Cities 



Contents * 

PAGB 

(2) New York 83 

A — Tenement House Law for ist Class Cities 
B — Tenement House Law for 2nd Oass Cities 

(5) New Jersey 83 

(4) Connecticut 84 

(5) Wisconsin 84 

A — Statewide Law 

B — Tenement House Law for ist Class Cities 

(6) Indiana 85 

(7) California 86 

(8) Kentucky 87 

(9) Massachusetts 87 

A — Tenement House Law for Towns 
B — Tenement House Law for Cities 

(10) Michigan 88 

(11) Minnesota 88 

5. City Legislation 89 

6. Conclusion 90 



CHAPTER IV 

MODEL HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES 
UNDER PRIVATE INITIATIVE 

1. Philanthropic Trust Funds 92 

2. Limited Dividend Housing Companies 93 

(i) Model Tenements 94 

A — Workmen's Home Association — 1854 . 94 
B — Boston Cooperative Building Company, 

1871 95 

C — Alfred T. White Tenements, 1878-1890 . 96 

D — City and Suburban Homes Company, 1896 98 

E — Other Model Tenements in New York . 100 

(2) Two-Flat Houses loi 

A — Sanitary Improvement Co. and Sanitary 

Housing Co., Washington loi 

B — The Schmidlapp Houses in Cincinnati . 104 
C — Improved Housing Association of New 

Haven , . , , , , . , ^ , • 105 



Contents 

PAGE 

(3) Single-Family Houses 105 

A — Billerica, Mass 105 

B — Westerly Gardens, N. J 106 

C — Titus Town, Va 107 

D — Torrance, Cal 108 

3. OcTAviA Hill Enterprises 109 

(i) Octavia Hill and Her Work in London . . .110 

(2) Octavia Hill Association of Philadelphia . . .111 

(3) Octavia Hill Idea Applied Elsewhere . . . .112 

4. Industrial Housing by Employers 114 

(i) Early Examples 115 

(2) Pullman 116 

(3) Foreign Examples 116 

A — Port Sunlight 117 

B — Bournville ' . 117 

C — Essen 118 

(4) Leclaire 118 

(5) Goodyear Heights . .119 

(6) Indian Hill 120 

(7) Hopedale 121 

(8) Roebling 121 

(9) Kistler 122 

(10) Marcus Hook 122 

(11) Hauto and Nanticoke 123 

(12) Morgan Park 124 

(13) Eclipse Park 124 

(14) Undesirable Examples 125 

5. Chamber of Commerce Enterprises 129 

(i) Albany Hom.e Building Company 129 

(2) Elmira Home Building Company 129 

(3) Bridgeport and Kenosha Companies . . . .130 

(4) Later Developments 130 

6. General Conclusions 131 

CHAPTER V 

THE EXPERIENCE OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES 

1. Identity of the Housing Problem 133 

2. Government Aid and Its Forms 136 

(i) State or Municipal Housing 137 



Contents 

PACE 

(2) Loans to Non-Commercial Housing Companies . 138 

(3) Loans to Individual Workingmen 138 

(4) Tax Exemptions 138 

3. The Pioneers 140 

(i) Great Britain 140 

A — History and Content of Legislation (Eng- 
land, Scotland and Wales) 140 

B — Results of Legislation (England and 

Wales) 150 

C — Ireland 162 

(2) Belgium 164 

A — History and Content of Legislation . . 164 
B — Results of Legislation 168 

(3) Germany 170 

A — History and Content of Legislation . . 170 
B — Results of Legislation 177 

(a) Some typical examples in Ulm, Dus- 

seldorf and Munich 177 

(b) Summary of money expended, houses 

built and persons housed . . . 183 

4. Other European Nations, South America and Cuba 184 

(i) France 185 

(2) Italy 189 

(3) Austria 191 

(4) Hungary 192 

(5) Holland 193 

(6) Norway 193 

(7) Sweden I94 

(8) Denmark 194 

(9) Spain 194 

(10) Rumania 195 

(11)' Switzerland 195 

(12) Luxemburg 195 

(13) Chile 196 

(14) Brazil 197 

(15) Argentina 197 

(16) Cuba 197 

5. Self-Governing British Colonies 197 

(i) New Zealand 199 

(2) Australia 202 

(3) Canada 204 



Contents 

CHAPTER VI 

THE BEGINNINGS OF CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING 
LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

PAGE 

1. Massachusetts Homestead Commission .... i^OQ 

(i) First Homestead Commission, ipop . . . .'209 

(2) Permanent Homestead Commission, ipii . .211 

(3) Town Planning Boards Established, iqi^ • -215 

(4) Housing by the Commonwealth 218 

2. Other Beginnings and Attempts at Beginnings . 222 

(i) California Commission of Immigration and 

Housing 222 

(2) Oklahoma Home Ownership Loan Law . . • 225 

(3) Borland-Pomerene Housing Loan Bill for the 

District of Columbia 227 

(4) Buchanan Postal Savings Deposits Housing 

Loan Bill 229 

3. Developments Which Will Fit in with a Con- 

structive Housing Program .... 229 
(i) Town Planning Legislation in the United States 229 

(2) Zoning and Districting in the United States . . 230 

(3) Building and Loan Associations in the United 

States 232 

4. War Housing by the Federal Government . . . 234 



CHAPTER VII 

OBJECTIONS TO CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING LEGIS- 
LATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

1. Presumption in Favor of Constructive Housing 

Legislation in the United States . . 238 

2. Constitutional Objection 240 

( 1 ) Limits of the Federal Constitution 240 

(2) Class Legislation 241 

(3) Police Power 243 

3. Economic Objection 245 

4. Social Objection 248 

5. Philosophical Objection 251 

6. Pessimistic Objection 253 



Contents 

CHAPTER VIII 

OUTLINE OF A COMPREHENSIVE HOUSING 
POLICY FOR THE UNITED STATES 

PAGE 

1. Which of the Four Types of Constructive Housing 

Legislation Should We Have? . . . 257 

2. Restrictive Housing Legislation ...... 260 

(i) To be developed simultaneously ..... 260 
(2) The Veiller Model Law 261 

3. Constructive Legislation, National, State and 

Local 261 

(i) National Legislation 261 

A — National Housing Commission . . > . 262 

(a) Functions 262 

(b) Funds 263 

B — Postal Savings Deposit Loans to Individ- 
ual Workingmen 266 

C — Housing Loans by National Banks . . 267 
D — Amendment of the Farm Loan Act . . 268 

(2) State Legislation 269 

A — State Housing and Town Planning . . 269 

B — Functions 271 

C — Funds 271 

(3) Local Legislation — Housing and Town Plan- 

ning Boards 272 

(4) Needs of Different Economic Groups • . . 275 

4. Conclusion 276 



THE HOUSING OF THE 
UNSKILLED WAGE EARNER 

CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

I. HOUSING AND THE WAR 

One of the incidental benefits of the war was that it 
awakened us to the importance of housing. No nation f^ 
can rise higher than the level of its homes. Whether 
we approach the subject from the point of view of health, 
morals, child conservation, industrial efficiency, Ameri- 
canization, or good citizenship, the housing problem is 
fundamental. 

We have been very slow. Germany realized a gen- 
eration ago that neither industrial nor military efficiency 
could be expected from an improperly housed popula- 
tion, and Germany took steps accordingly. In 1889 
industrial Belgium embarked on a policy that was to 
make her people a nation of home owners. Great 
Britain has given us the garden city. She has written 
on her statute books and established in her practice the 
doctrine of community responsibility for the housing 
of the people. 

The war has quickened the public conscience in mat- 
ters of social justice, it has taught us the need of con- 
serving life and health, it has aroused a demand for 



2 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

real democracy. In so far as it has done these things, 
it has helped housing. But more directly and concretely, 
through the slacking up of shipbuilding and other war 
work because of the lack of housing accommodations 
for the workers, which occurred within a few months 
of our entry into the war, it has got through our easy- 
going, insulating indifference the idea that a man must 
have a place to live in as well as a place to work in, and 
that if we expect good men to keep on working under 
high pressure, they must have real homes to go back to 
when the day's work is done, — not simply a roof and a 
bed. Great shipbuilding and munition plants were to 
be created, others were to be vastly enlarged. Some of 
these plants were to employ as many as thirty thousand 
new men. Where were they to live? No one had 
given the matter the slightest thought. It has been an 
American habit to let such things adjust themselves 
through the free action of the law of supply and demand. 
Individualism has been our guiding star, and private 
initiative our fetish. 

Under the strain of the war need the law of supply 
and demand, always painfully inadequate, broke down 
completely. Samuel Gompers called attention to the 
fact in August, 191 7. A housing section of the 
sub-committee on welfare work of the Committee on 
Labor of the Advisory Commission of the Coun- 
cil of National Defense was created with Philip Hiss 
as chairman. Hearings were held, various localities 
reporting housing shortages were visited, and a report 
drawn up which showed the seriousness of the sit- 
uation. On October 9, 19 17, the Council of National 
Defense appointed a housing committee with Otto M. 
Eidlitz of New York as chairman, which made a second 
quick survey and presented a report, a summary of 



Introduction 3 

which was made public on November 2. After giving 
several instances of war work halted by housing short- 
age, this report says : " It is the opinion of the Com- 
mittee on Housing that the existing emergency demands 
immediate action and it is convinced that under proper 
safeguards the Government should give quick financial 
aid to such industries or communities as can clearly 
demonstrate their right to relief. In this regard it is 
suggested that any aid that may be given by the Govern- 
ment should preferably be rendered in the form of loans 
at a low rate of interest. Some loss to the Government 
may be reasonably expected, but the expenditure neces- 
sary to give relief is negligible when measured by the 
loss incident to delay in the execution of the vast war 
orders already placed. It is the judgment of the com- 
mittee that an organization of reasonable permanency 
and authority is necessary to administer quickly and 
effectively such funds as may be available for housing 
purposes, and that such organization should have broad 
powers to conduct building operations, to deal in real 
estate and securities, and to borrow and loan money. . . . 
The Committee on Housing particularly emphasizes the 
conviction that Government aid for industrial housing 
should be considered as a war measure and be rigidly 
confined to cases where restriction of output of war ma- 
terials would otherwise occur.'* 

Thus almost overnight was the great step taken of es- 
tablishing Government aid in housing, which would 
under ordinary circumstances have required years of 
patient educational work. Of course it was only a war 
emergency measure, but it is hardly conceivable that 
such an experience will not exert a pro fund influence 
on our future housing policies. 

The report of the Eidlitz committee did not produce 



4 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

immediate results. It had been fondly supposed that 
houses would be building by the thousand before snow 
was flying, but it was not till late in February, 191 8, 
that Congress appropriated fifty million dollars for 
housing under the Shipping Board and not until May 
that agreement was reached on a sixty-million-dollar 
appropriation for other war workers. During the sum- 
mer of 19 1 8 an additional twenty-five million w^as ap- 
propriated for housing under the Shipping Board and an. 
additional forty million for housing under the Depart- 
ment of Labor, which was to administer the other fund. 
Nor have the executive authorities pursued an un- 
deviating course. There have been numerous changes 
of plan and some fluctuations in policy. Many important? 
parts of a housing policy — such as the management and 
ultimate disposition of the communities to be built — 
are as yet undetermined. But the great preliminary 
step has been taken. Government money has been lent 
to corporations like the Bethlehem Steel Company, and 
the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, to the Wil- 
mington Housing Company, recently organized under the 
auspices of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, and 
to a number of similar companies. The United States 
Housing Corporation functioning under the Department 
of Labor is building communities directly. Where the 
money is loaned, the Government still controls standards 
of housing and rental. The general policy of permanent 
one- family houses for married workers and temporary 
barracks for single workers has been adopted. The 
Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation has 
taken a further step in adopting a set of " standards," 
printed in a sixteen-page pamphlet, which follow the 
model law in many respects and go beyond it in not a few, 
notably in the amount of yard space required. 



Introduction 5 

The National Housing Association and the American 
Institute of Architects have carried on an educational 
campaign by pubHcations and conferences to secure the 
adoption of thoroughly good standards of planning and 
building. The American Institute of Architects has 
been especially active in popularizing information about 
Well Hall and Gretna, and other beautiful garden cities 
erected for munition workers by the British Govern- 
ment. It pointed out that we, with the Atlantic between 
us and the enemy, ought to be able to do as much for our 
war workers as Great Britain had done with the enemy 
at her door. 

The two organizations referred to formulated out- 
lines of war housing policy which doubtless exerted con- 
siderable and deserved influence on the fluid plans of the 
Government. Meanwhile all sorts of persons with in- 
terested motives, would-be contractors, purveyors of var- 
ious kinds of building material, or owners of " innocent 
tenement house property," were bombarding the authori- 
ties with advice. Much dust was raised and issues were 
confused. Nevertheless, with or without a policy, the 
Government began to act. In the September, 1918,^ 
issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Archi- 
tects is to be found a list of 89 housing projects decided 
on up to that time by the Emergency Fleet Corporation, 
the Ordnance Department and the United States Housing 
Corporation. In many of these the work was well ad- 
vanced, in some, houses were already occupied.^ 

Then, early in November, came the unexpected col- 
lapse of the Central Powers and the signing of the ar- 
mistice. With that every Government housing project 
was halted. Even those well under way could not be 

1 A later list is given in the February, 1919, number of Housing 
Betterment, a quarterly issued by the National Housing AssOQiation. 



6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

finished without the authorization of Congress. For a 
time it looked as if all these good beginnings would be 
scrapped, but better counsels prevailed, and it now seems 
probable that all of the Shipping Board projects and 
twenty- three of the Department of Labor projects will 
be carried to completion. 

Much of the future housing policy, and consequently 
much of the future welfare of our country, hangs on the 
decisions to be made in the next few months. 

2. PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY 

The war housing problem is only a part of the larger 
housing problem. A war housing policy should be only 
a special application of a general housing policy. 

There is a crying need for authentic facts on which to 
base a comprehensive housing policy and for critical 
interpretation of those facts. Only on such a basis can a 
rational policy be formulated. 

This study has been undertaken as a contribution 
toward supplying these needs. It will be necessary to 
consider what American housing conditions are and how 
far they fall short of accepted standards, what methods 
of solving the housing problem have been tried in the 
United States and how far those methods have been suc- 
cessful. It will next be needful to consider the expe- 
rience of foreign countries, the methods they have pur- 
sued in solving their housing problems, the extent of 
their success and the adaptability of their methods to 
our home conditions. By the time we reach that point, 
we ought to have acquired something in the nature of a 
philosophy of housing which should enable us to formu- 
late an American housing policy equally useful in war or 
peace. 



Introduction 



3. EXTENT OF BAD HOUSING CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED 

STATES 

Roughly stated, one-third of the people of the United 
States are living under subnormal housing conditions, 
conditions which fall below the minimum standard we 
shall presently describe, and about a tenth are living 
under conditions which are an acute menace to health, 
morals and family life, conditions which tend to produce 
degenerative changes in those subject to them. We ar- 
rive at these figures, which are of course only approxi- 
mate, by studying the very numerous housing surveys 
which have been made in various parts of the country, 
and confirm them by the economic considerations we shall 
presently summarize, further checking our calculations 
by census figures on the racial make-up of our population. 

( I ) The Evidence from Housing Surveys 

Not to go back of 1900, the literature of housing sur- 
veys in the United States is voluminous. The report of 
the last New York Tenement House Commission is of 
that date. President Roosevelt's Homes Commission 
dealt with Washington exhaustively in 1908. The Chi- 
cago School of Civics and Philanthropy has brought out a 
series of studies of housing conditions in Chicago among 
various racial groups. The Pittsburgh survey was the 
occasion of a number of housing studies in and near 
Pittsburgh. Boston had a Commission to Investigate 
Tenement House Conditions, appointed by the Mayor in 
1903. A further investigation was made by a committee 
of business men in 19 10 and a bulletin detailing a num- 
ber of typical housing evils was issued by the Women's 
Municipal League in 19 16. The reports of the Cali- 
fornia Commission of Immigration and Housing contain 



8 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

studies of housing conditions in San Francisco, Los 
Angeles, Stockton, Fresno and other towns. A Housing 
Commission appointed by the Governor issued a report 
for the state of Michigan in December, 1916. The Phil- 
adelphia Housing Commission has published various re- 
ports on local housing conditions. Housing surveys of 
Des Moines and St. Paul have appeared within the last few 
months. Baltimore, Richmond, St. Louis, Minneapolis, 
Grand Rapids, Providence, are a few among the cities 
•/that have had housing surveys. When we have read 
three or four of these reports, we might close our eyes 
and recite the rest. Only the proper names and the 
figures differ. The same conditions meet us everywhere 
— lot overcrowding and room overcrowding, dark 
rooms and inadequately lighted rooms, lack of water, 
lack of sanitary conveniences, dilapidation, excessive fire 
risks, basement and cellar dwellings. There are differ- 
ences in emphasis. The besetting sin of Philadelphia 
may be privy vaults, while that of Boston is dark rooms; 
New York may have no inhabited alleys and Washington 
no tall tenements, but none can afford to throw stones. 

The conditions revealed in these reports will be con- 
sidered in the next chapter. 

(2) The Evidence from Building Costs 

A. The American Standard in Housing 

We have touched on housing evils. Before we pro- 
ceed to remedies, we must agree on a satisfactory stand- 
ard. Have we a clear-cut idea as to what the American 
standard in housing involves ? We are dealing with min- 
imum standards, below which society cannot, in its own 
interest, allow any section of its membership to sink. 

What is a satisfactory minimum standard to apply to 
the home of an unskilled wage earner? Presumably 



Introduction 9 

there would be no dissent from the negative statement 
that no house should be permitted which is injurious to 
the health or morals of those who live in it. 

Generalities, even positively expressed, command easy 
assent. There should be enough of light, air and space 
to make healthy children, enough rooms to permit privacy 
and the preservation of self-respect, as many modern 
conveniences as may be practicable. This last word 
opens the door wide to discussion. But standards are 
higher than they used to be. Few would be found to- 
day to question that an abundance of pure water is a 
necessity, or that where sewers have been laid, every 
dwelling should be connected with them. Yet Trinity *^ 
Church Corporation fought in the courts until 1895 the 
provisions of the New York Tenement House Act of 
1887 requiring running water on each floor of a tenement 
house. And the acceptance of the principle of universal 
sewer connection in such cities as Baltimore and Phila- 
delphia is a matter only of the last few years. 

Discussion still rages over whether a bath-tub is a 
luxury or a necessity, but the trend of opinion, more 
marked with the passage of each year, is certainly in 
favor of including it in the American standard of 
housing. 

Certain minimum standards of floor space, window 
space, cubic air space per occupant, size of courts and 
yards, plumbing, fire escapes, repairs and cleanliness have 
achieved a sort of crystallization through enactment into 
law. 

The best opinion is strongly in favor of the single- 
family detached house with a yard around it, wherever 
such a type is practicable. But with ever so good a de- 
velopment of garden suburbs and ever so great improve- 
ment in transit facilities, even with tax reform thrown 



10 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

in, a large percentage of New Yorkers must continue to 
live near their work in multiple dwellings. And in 
lesser degree this is true of other great cities. Though 
Philadelphia, by a wise system of lot sub-division and 
minor streets, has found it possible to provide low-cost 
single-family houses in rows for a surprisingly large 
proportion of its working population. 

The National Conference of Charities and Correction 
held at Cleveland in 19 12, through its Committee on 
Standards of Living and Labor, Owen R. Lovejoy, 
chairman, formulated its housing standard as follows 
(Proceedings, pp. 391, 392) : 

" The Right to a Home. Social welfare demands for 
every family a safe and sanitary home; healthful sur- 
roundings; ample and pure running water inside the 
house; modem and sanitary toilet conveniences for its 
exclusive use, located inside the building; adequate sun- 
light and ventilation ; reasonable fire protection ; privacy ; 
rooms of sufficient size and number to decently house the 
members of the family; freedom from dampness; prompt, 
adequate collection of all waste materials. These funda- 
mental requirements for normal living should be obtain- 
able by every family, reasonably accessible from place of 
employment, at a rental not exceeding 20 per cent, of 
the family income." 

Turning from social workers to business men, we find 
the Housing Committee of the Minneapolis Civic and 
Commerce Association, in September, 19 14, ending a 
report on " Housing Problems in Minneapolis " with 
these words (p. 109) : 

" A new spirit is developing in industry, a spirit bom 
of the realization that all industry suffers through the mis- 
fortune of any factor. The employer fails to prosper as 
his men fail to prosper. Bad housing for the workman 



Introduction 1 1 

means bad business for the one who hires. In the Hght 
of this spirit, the primary question is not ' What can the 
tenant afford ? ' it is * What can Minneapolis afford ? ' 
If we are to develop in Minneapolis the highest type of 
civilization, if industry is to thrive permanently, if art 
and music are to serve their highest purposes, we must 
first recognize as an essential prerequisite to the realiza- 
tion of these high ideals, the providing of a home life 
for every family, rich or poor, that shall insure to them 
their inalienable rights of sanitation, safety, ventilation, 
privacy, sunlight, space and beauty." 

A more recent and more concrete formulation of the 
American standard of housing will be found in John 
Nolen's report to the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce 
(" More Houses for Bridgeport," Aug., 1916, p. 28) : 
** Minimum House — four rooms, Living Room, Kit- 
chen, two Bedrooms and Bath, five rooms preferred. 
Living Room, Kitchen, three Bedrooms and Bath; al- 
lows for separate bedrooms for older children of dif- 
ferent sexes." 

We have spoken of the American standard of housing, 
because that is what most concerns us, not because it 
differs in any essential particular from the standards of 
other countries. The only discoverable difference be- 
tween English and American standards is that under the 
pressure of economic necessity, the English are more apt 
to sacrifice the bathroom and we the third bedroom. 
Under further pressure of low wages, they have (though 
decreasingly in recent years) accepted two- and three- 
room apartments in city tenements to an extent that 
would be without excuse in this country. And the lower 
wages on the continent have made the two- and three- 
room apartment far more prevalent there than in Eng- 
l^ncj. This is especially true of Germany. I am spes^k- 



12 Hoiirsing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

ing of so-called model housing enterprises, whether by 
municipalities or private associations. 

Discussions of standards of living are based on the 
theoretical standard family, consisting of father, mother, 
and three minor children. Naturally, any practical 
building program has to take into account the needs of 
both larger and smaller groups. 

B. Economic Aspects of the American Standard 

Mr. Nolen, who has already been quoted, in a paper 
read at the Fifth National Housing Conference in Prov- 
idence (Oct. 9— II, 191 6) sums up the economic points 
of the situation very forcibly (Proceedings of the Na- 
tional Housing Association. Vol. V, p. 5) : 

'' I. The minimum desirable house of four or five 
rooms cannot be provided in the United States, even 
under favorable conditions, for less than about $1,800 
or $2,000 — that is for house and lot, with street im- 
provements, essential public utilities and neighborhood 
recreation. 

" 2. A house costing that sum cannot be offered on the 
basis of an economic rent of, say 5 per cent, or 6 per 
cent, net, for less than $15 per month. 

"3. Unless a wage earner with a normal family of 
wife and three dependent children has an income of $15 a 
week, or $800 a year, he cannot afford to pay as much as 
$15 a month for rent. 

" 4. More than one-half of all workingmen receive less 
than $15 a week." 

The writer believes there is no escape from the logic 
of these facts, and Mr. Nolen's figures would have to be 
raised five or six hundred dollars to meet the increase in 
cost of building which has taken place since the fall of 
1916. 



Introduction 13 

The figures when given were necessarily a rough aver- 
age. Enormous differences in the value of land exist 
between city, town and village, and there are very con- 
siderable differences in the cost of labor and building 
materials in different sections of the country. 

Among the plans and costs of various types of working- 
men's homes shown in " More Houses for Bridgeport," 
those which meet the requirements of Mr, Nolen's stand- 
ard vary from $1,200 for a five-room-and-bath frame 
house at Kistler, Penn., to $3,285 for a six-room-and- 
bath stucco house erected by the Morton Grinding Com- 
pany of Worcester, Mass. 

The returns from the model housing questionnaires 
sent out in the summer of 19 16 by the National Housing 
Association bear out these figures. 

The most economical single- family city house of accept- 
able standard is the Philadelphia four-room-and-bath 
row house which sold for $1,750 just before the war. 

The Washington Sanitary Housing Company has suc- 
ceeded in evolving a type of two-flat house, with three or 
four rooms and a bath in each flat, at a cost, a few years 
ago, of about $1,200 per family, including land. (" Small 
Houses Within the City Limits for Unskilled Wage 
Earners," George M. Sternberg, Surgeon General U. S. 
A., retired, Dec, 19 14.) 

Mr. Schmidlapp's experience in Cincinnati has been 
similar as far as may be judged by the very differently 
presented figures. ( Low Priced Housing for Wage 
Earners," Oct., 19 16.) 

Again, the May, 19 16, report of the City and Subur- 
ban Homes Company of New York gives figures from 
which it is easy to compute that the average cost per 
family for the 11,000 people housed in their model ten- 
ements was $2,240. Their apartments have water; pri- 



14 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

vate toilets, steam heat and in some cases bath, and con- 
tain two, three and four rooms. 

It is clear that on a basis of lo per cent, gross income, 
commonl}^ reckoned necessary to secure a 6 per cent, net 
return, an $i,8oo house and lot must produce $i8o 
annual, or $15 monthly rental, and a $2,400 house and 
lot a rental of $20 a month. It is also evident that no 
one, knowingly, as a business investment, undertakes 
the trouble and risk of a building operation for less. 
Why should he, when he can invest his money in gilt 
edge bonds and mortgages without stirring from his 
easy chair and get as much return? 

Even the semi-philanthropical enterprises have to 
clear 5 per cent, or they cannot get capital. The City and 
Suburban Homes Company, it is true, has been contented 
with 4 per cent., but its reports lament its restricted use- 
fulness because of lack of capital. The Washington 
Sanitary Housing Company, which started out on a 4 
per cent, basis, had to amend its charter and make it 5 
per cent, before it could get money to build with. Some 
employers rent houses to their workmen at less than 
commercial returns, but as a rule this is where wages or 
houses or both are distinctly below par. It is rather 
surprising that the example of Sir William Lever at 
Port Sunlight has not appealed more forcibly to Amer- 
ican employers. 

Twenty per cent, of the family income for rent is the 
usually accepted maximum which can be spent without 
impairing health by undue economy on food and clothing. 

Mr. Nolen's assertion that more than one-half of the 
workingmen of the United States receive less than $15 
a week is an under statement. As he told the writer, he 
wished to err on the conservative side. He based his 
statement on the figures in Public Health Bulletin No. 



Introduction 15 

76 (U. S. Treasury Dept., March, 1916), and what it 
says is that it had been found in recent years that from 
two-thirds to three-fourths of the male workers of eigh- 
teen years of age and over in the principal industries of 
the United States earn less than $15 a week. (" Health 
Insurance, Its Relation to the Public Health, B. S. War- 
ner and Edward Sydenstricker, p. 33). Moreover, an- 
nual earnings are much less than fifty- two times weekly 
earnings, because few employments are continuous. So 
it comes about that one-half of the adult male workers 
earn less than $600 annually, four-fifths earn less than 
$800 annually, and only one-tenth earn as much as $1000 
a year. 

To be sure, there has been a sharp upward trend of 
wages since 191 6, but except for shipyard and munition 
workers, it has not been great enough to wipe out the 
margin left by Mr. Nolen's conservatism. In Febru- 
ary, 19 1 8, the New Jersey Commission on Old Age In- 
surance and Pensions, in the course of its report to the 
Governor, stated that two-thirds of the wage earners of 
New Jersey have an income of less than $780 a year. 
It may be urged that the figures are not so bad as they 
sound because the man is probably not the only wage 
earner in the family. He has cnildren old enough to 
work, or his wife likes to do her bit. And thereby, of 
course, hangs the tragedy. If there is one time more 
than another when wholesome, sunny, airy rooms are 
essential, when dark, stuffy, damp and cheerless rooms 
can work the maximum of harm, it is while the children 
are little. And in the nature of things some fifteen 
years must pass before the oldest child can go to work. 
Is the family to be improperly housed during those all- 
important fifteen years? or is the wife and mother to be 
forced to leave her little ones when they need her most 



1 6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

in order to save them from it ? And even when the sac- 
rifice has been made, it does not always or generally lift 
the family into the decently housed group, for the bul- 
letin we have been quoting deals also in family incomes 
and tells us that nearly a third of wage earners' families 
in the principal manufacturing and mining industries had 
an annual income of less than $500 and over one-half 
had incomes of less than $750 a year. 

In May, 19 18, the Railroad Wage Commission ap- 
pointed by Mr. McAdoo reported that the average pay of 
111,477 railroad clerks during 191 7 had been $56.77 a 
month, while the average pay of 270,855 section hands 
was only $50.31. A large class received $46 a month. 
Yet railroad employees have always been considered a 
well paid group. ^ 

Recent cost of living studies put the minimum income 
at which a man and his wife and three children can main- 
tain physical efficiency at from $875 to $1000 according 
to the section of the country. 
/ The apparent hopelessness of these figures is rather 
appalling. Mr. Nolen sees the solution in lowering of 
costs by quantity production and acceptance of small 
dividends on the part of housing companies organized 
by employers from motives of enlightened self-interest. 

The present writer is convinced that to make the wage 
earner dependent for his home on a group of employers 
is only a shade less objectionable than having his own 
employer for his landlord. Democracy cannot flourish 
in such a soil. 

1 The most favorable recent wage figures, except for restricted 
groups, are those furnished by the New York State Industrial Com- 
mission for the month of May, 1918, when $19.91 was given as the 
average weekly earnings of New York workers. This established a 
high record. But even so, it will be readily understood that a largq 
proportion of workers still received under $15. 



Introduction 17 

Nor is there any reason to believe from past expe- 
rience that employers will rally to such a purpose in 
sufficient numbers or with sufficient capital to have any 
profound effect on the situation. The problem is too 
big for the suggested solution. 

(3) Confirmation Supplied by the Racial Make-up of 
Our Population 

Racial make-up figures offer a rough method of 
checking, from an entirely different angle, our estimates 
of the prevalence of bad housing. From a table on page 
135 of the first volume of the 13th Census of the United 
States (19 10), we learn that negroes formed 10.7 per 
cent, of our population, foreign-born whites 14.5 per 
cent., Indians, Chinese, Japanese, etc., 0.4 per cent., or 
25.6 per cent, for the group. Native white of foreign or 
mixed parentage constituted 20.5 per cent, of our popu- 
lation. 

Recall that the American-born children of foreign- 
born parents who still live at home constitute a numer- 
ous contingent, which, for housing purposes, belongs 
with the foreign-born group. 

Bad housing conditions, urban or rural, are so gener- 
ally the portion of negroes and foreign-born whites in 
the United States, that it is not unlikely the children just 
alluded to would more than balance the properly housed 
members of these groups. 

In addition, a large number of American-born adults 
of foreign parentage are still improperly housed, es- 
pecially in manufacturing cities and mining towns. And 
many millions of American whites of purely native stock 
are in the sam6 condition, especially in rural districts. 
The poor whites of the South who furnish the operatives 
for the cotton mills are for the most part subnormally 



1 8 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

housed; yet one of the stock arguments for child labor 
of the cotton mill owners is based on the fact that the 
housing conditions in the mountains and rural districts 
from which they were drawn were decidedly worse. 
The Rockefeller Commission's investigations of the 
prevalence of hook-worm fully bear this out. Even the 
primitive box privy is in some regions a mark of progress. 
And the one-room cabin is familiar to all readers of 
Tennessee mountain fiction. 

4. THE HOUSING PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION 

(i) Two-fold Character of the Problem 

Precisely what is the housing problem? It may be 
stated either as the problem of how to avoid bad houses 
and get good houses, or of how to get good houses and 
avoid bad houses, according to tempieramental emphasis. 
Lawrence Veiller's definition in " A Model Housing 
Law " (p. 4) could hardly be improved upon: 

" The housing problem is the problem of enabling the 
great mass of people who want to live in decent surround- 
ings and bring up their children under proper conditions 
to have such opportunities. It is also, to a very large 
extent, the problem of preventing other people who either 
do not care for decent conditions or are unable to achieve 
them from maintaining conditions which are a menace 
to their neighbors, to the community and to civilization." 

It is all there in a nutshell, the positive and the nega- 
tive, the constructive and the restrictive sides. In this 
two-fold aspect of the housing problem lies the reason 
for the two types of housing law which have been de- 
veloped : ( I ) the constructive type, which aims to in- 
crease the supply of good houses, and (2) the restrictive, 
which aims to prevent the erection or the maintenance 



Introduction 19 

of bad houses. There ought to be no quarrel between 
them or their advocates. Both are essential to a well- 
rounded housing policy. The housing problem will 
never be solved without the aid of both. 

Yet that is just what we have been trying to do in the 
United States. We have been trying to solve the hous- 
ing problem by the aid of restrictive legislation alone, 
trusting to private initiative to supply the demand for 
good, cheap houses. Private initiative has failed lament- 
ably. We have just shown that unskilled workers can- 
not be supplied with decent homes under existing eco- 
nomic conditions on a business basis. The proposed al- 
ternative, that some thirty-five million people should be 
housed under a system of voluntarily limited dividends 
on capital advanced by employers or philanthropists, 
seems to the writer utterly impossible of accomplishment. 

"In no country has private enterprise been equal to 
the task of properly housing the inhabitants," says the 
first report of the Massachusetts Homestead Commis- 
sion (Jan., 1913, p. 6). " So we find . . . everywhere the 
conclusion that private initiative hag proved inadequate 
to deal with the problem and that systematic Govern- 
ment regulation, encouragement, and financial aid must 
be given," declares the Federal Bureau of Labor Statis- 
tics (Bulletin 158, Government Aid to Home Owning 
and Housing of Working People in Foreign Countries, 
Oct. 15, 1914, pp. 9/10). 

(2) Two- fold Character of the Solution — Restrictive 
and Constructive Housing Legislation 

Restrictive housing legislation aims to prevent the 
erection or maintenance of bad houses through the es- 
tablishment and enforcement of minimum standards of 
light, ventilation, sanitation and safety. 



20 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Constructive housing legislation creates the mechan- 
ism through which the community itself undertakes to 
provide suitable houses at cost. 

When we in the United States think of a housing law, 
we think of a restrictive law — the New York tenement 
house law, the Indiana housing law, the Cleveland ten- 
ement house ordinance, or the like. There are scores of 
them, from the admirable Minneapolis housing law of 
19 1 7 to the most fragmentary provisions in building and 
health codes. These laws endeavor to prevent the erec- 
tion or the maintenance of utterly bad houses. They 
prescribe the percentage of a lot that may be built upon, 
the size of yards, courts and windows. They may force 
the installation of city water or the substitution of sewer 
connections for privy vaults. They may forbid the use 
of cellar tenements. They may provide that a leaky 
roof or a broken drain pipe must be repaired, or that 
accumulations of filth be removed from cellars and 
alleys. 

These things are very important. They must never 
be neglected. They are an essential part of municipal 
house-keeping, but they will not by themselves solve the 
housing problem. The best restrictive legislation is only 
negative. It will prevent the bad. It will not produce 
the good. Especially, it will not produce it at a given 
rental. And rental is a despot. A high standard of 
restrictive legislation will not be enacted, or if enacted, 
will not be enforced, when its enforcement will leave a 
considerable number of people homeless. 

The only answer of restrictive legislation to a house 
famine is the relaxation of its own standards. A strik- 
ing illustration of this was furnished by San Francisco 
after the earthquake and fire of 1906. If there had 
been a national or state system of supplying credit for 



Introduction 21 

housing purposes, the disaster would have aifforded a 
wonderful opportunity to rebuild the congested districts 
on model lines. As it was, the need of immediate shel- 
ter was so great, and private capital had been rendered 
so timid by the earthquake, that all bars were let down, 
and even the inadequate restrictions of the old building 
code were suspended. The result was that tenements 
were built in great numbers, covering 100 per cent, of 
their lots and a dark-room problem created which will 
afflict San Francisco for many a long year. 

The development of restrictive housing legislation 
throughout the United States has been uneven and there 
is crying need of lifting the more backward sections to 
the level of the best. But that best is, perhaps, as high a 
level as is obtainable in the absence of constructive 
measures. 

New York's experience may serve as an example. The 
New York tenement house law was the first of the 
modern type and remains one of the best. It is also one 
of the best enforced. It was drawn up by the New York 
Tenement House Commission of 1900. Robert W. de 
Forest, chairman of the commission, who certainly can- 
not be accused of a leaning towards constructive housing 
legislation, in the beginning of its report (*' The Tenement 
House Problem," p. 7) after expressing the regret of the 
commission that they could not provide larger yards 
for new buildings and require the construction of courts 
or air shafts to light the dark rooms of old buildings, 
because of the prohibitive cost, concluded as follows: 
" Tenement house reform would not be practical which 
went so far as to put a stop to building new tenement 
houses. Nor would it be practical if it compelled such 
extensive changes in the old tenements that owners would 
turn them to other uses. . . . Reform of such a kind 



22 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

would harm most the very persons it sought to aid." 
Which exactly bears out what we have been saying as to 
the limitations of restrictive legislation. 

Take this single example — the dark room. Previous 
to the law of 1879 which required air shafts, tenement 
houses in New York were built six and eight rooms 
deep from street to back yard. That meant two apart- 
ments, each with three or four rooms. One room had 
windows opening on street or back yard. The others 
were windowless, the doorway from one room to the 
next was the only opening. According to the report of 
the Commission of 1900 there were some 350,000 such 
rooms in Greater New York at that time. On March 
13, 19 1 7, the writer received a communication from the 
New York Tenement House Department stating that on 
December 31, 1916, there were but 252 totally dark 
rooms left in the city of New York. But what does that 
mean? It means that in compliance with the require- 
ments of the tenement house law, windows have been cut 
through the partitions into the adjoining rooms. Of 
course that represents an improvement — a few rays of 
dim light, the possibility of starting a faint movement 
in the fetid air of the inner caverns. But by any decent 
standard the rooms are still unfit for human habitation. 

How many of them are there? No one knows pre- 
cisely, for as soon as they become law-abiding by the 
cutting of the partition window, the Tenement House 
Department ceases to count them. But only some five 
thousand tenement houses of the 82,652 existing in 1900 
had been torn down previous to the first of January, 
19 1 7, so even though they probably included more than 
their proportional share of dark rooms, there must 
surely be from 250,000 to 300,000 still remaining, and 
in view of the congestion among the people who inhabit 



Introduction 23 

these least desirable quarters, there can hardly be less 
than half a million people living in them. What sort 
of a harvest of citizens may we expect from such a garden 
plot? 

A large proportion of the people living in these rooms 
are Russians, and if the often-repeated statement is 
true that Leon Trotsky derived his distrust of the United 
States from the housing conditions in which he found 
his compatriots living in New York, and if the Bolshe- 
viki peace with Germany was the result of Trotsky's 
distrust of America, then indeed our sons paid with 
their blood on the soil of France for the dark rooms 
of the Lower East Side, which it would have cost too 
much to lighten ! ^ 

In other countries the principle has been rather gen- 
erally accepted that such conditions as this, resulting 
from the past laxity of the community standards, should 
be remedied at the cost of the community — and from 
the acceptance of this principle have come the great slum 
clearance enterprises of London and Liverpool, of Naples 
and Marseilles. 

The leaders of housing reform in the United States 
have said quite simply, " The taxpayers would never 
stand for it,'* and save for small sporadic experiments 
like Mulberry Bend in New York, Willow Tree Alley in 
Washington and Morton Street in Boston, the taxpayers 
have not belied the statement. " But," the advocates of 
restrictive housing legislation say, ** although we cannot 
do much in compulsory improvement of the old houses, 
with proper standards established for the new houses, 

1 The later developments which so thoroughly discredited Trotsky, 
even the indications that he was in German pay, need not throw 
doubt on the sincerity of his belief in American hypocrisy or the 
part played by housing conditions in producing that belief. 



24 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

all will gradually right itself as the old buildings dis- 
appear." Of course this is true, if the standard for new- 
buildings is a satisfactory one and if the unskilled wage 
earner can afford to live in them. 

How does this work out in New York ? The new^-law 
tenements are a very real advance on the old ones. 
They represent the best that was obtainable under the 
circumstances and in view of the altogether abnormally 
high land values prevalent in New York. But they are 
far from ideal. The houses are too high, the rooms 
too small, the courts too narrow. Mr. Veiller, who, more 
than any other man, stands in loco parentis to the statute, 
has said repeatedly, that no other community ought to 
be content with the New York standards. Yet the fact 
is that the new-law tenements, with the exception of a 
few jerry-built ones that have got by the inspectors in 
Brooklyn, are beyond the financial reach of unskilled 
wage earners. What good does it do the $40 a month 
man that good houses are put up if he cannot afford to 
live in one? On January i, 19 17, there were in greater 
New York 77,604 old-law tenement houses containing 
597,955 apartments. On the same date there were 2^,- 
149 new-law houses with 2>7^AA/^ apartments. Bear in 
mind that a tenement house under the New York law is 
any house occupied as the residence of three or more 
families living independently of each other and doing 
their cooking upon the premises and includes every grade 
of apartments up to the twenty thousand a year ones on 
Riverside Drive. Remember also that nearly every one 
in New York lives in an apartment. Add that the homes 
of the poor are much more densely peopled than the 
homes of the rich. Then, since the wealthy, the well-to- 
do, the small salaried man and the skilled artisan have 
nearly all sought the new buildings, it must be clear that 



Introduction 25 

the unskilled wage earners of New York are still living 
almost exclusively in the old-law houses. They are sub- 
normally housed now, but when the old buildings, which 
are at least cheap, disappear, their plight will be desper- 
ate unless we can imagine wages doubling and rents re- 
maining stationary, or unless the city comes to the rescue 
with houses from which the element of commercial re- 
turn has been eliminated. 

What is true in New York is true in other American 
cities. Their housing problems do not differ from those 
of New York in kind, but only in degree. 

Restrictive housing legislation alone is impotent to 
solve the housing problem, but we cannot make it too 
emphatic that the solution of the housing problem cannot 
be attained without it. Ever so good a supply of new 
houses would not of itself empty the old and unfit ones. 
Some unfortunates would always be found willing to 
live in them if they were allowed to. While we are busy 
building garden suburbs we must not permit the process 
of slum making to go on — as it surely will unless held in 
check by law. 

The quarrel between the advocates of constructive and 
restrictive housing legislation is as though half of the 
community should say " What is the use of a penal 
code? If we have good schools and send all the children 
to them, no one will want to commit a crime," and the 
other half should retort " Close your expensive schools. 
If you have a well-thought-out penal code strictly en- 
forced, everybody will have to behave virtuously, so why 
educate them ? " 

The housing problem, always two- fold, must have a 
two-fold solution. On the one hand we must prevent 
houses being built or occupied which fall below the ac- 
cepted standard. On the other hand we must see that 



26 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

enough houses are built in conformity to it to supply the 
demand, and they must be obtainable at a price which the 
workingman can pay. 

Both activities are essential. They are, moreover, 
interdependent and ought to go on simultaneously, just 
as a boat must be rowed by two oars, which should move 
in unison. Even the intermittent action of a paddle 
results in lost motion. It is much to be regretted that 
the men at the oars do not always appear to see this 
and that the public mind has been confused by the rival 
claims of the starboard-oar and the port-oar schools of 
thought. 

(3) Necessity of Solving the Housing Problem 

The housing problem must be solved. It is not a 
question of Can w^e do it ? but only of How shall we do it? 
When we are up against something which is a barrier to 
human progress, we find a w^ay through, over or around. 
Which is merely another way of saying that necessity 
is the mother of invention. Evolution is a process 
which neither the constitution of the United States, nor 
the supposed interests of real estate owners, nor even the 
ancient and respectable force of inertia can permanently 
hold back. 

We are the product of heredity and environment. 
Heredity is fixed at the moment of conception. From 
then on the only controllable element in the combina- 
tion is environment. The earlier the stage, the more 
malleable is the product, and the more potent is environ- 
ment. If we were not utterly blind and heedless, we 
W'ould go to any length, make any sacrifice, to enable 
every child to spend his first five years, at least, while 
the foundations of his health, his mind and his character 



Introduction 27 

are being laid, in an environment of pure air, sunshine, 
cleanliness and serenity. 

Luther Bur bank says in " The Training of the Human 
Plant " : " All animal life is sensitive to environment, 
but of all living things the child is most sensitive. A 
child absorbs environment." 

Tuberculosis flourishes in dark rooms and basement *^ 
dwellings! The danger of contagion is multiplied by 
overcrowding. Overcrowding and lack of privacy re- 
sult in immorality. A cheerless home is responsible 
for much intemperance and juvenile delinquency. Dark 
halls are unsafe for women and girls to pass through. 
Ill-lighted rooms produce defective vision. Lack of ven- 
tilation means lowered vitality. Dilapidation is fatal to 
self-respect. 

Hospitals, insane asylums and reformatories, even 
schools, are expensive palliatives, dealing semi-success- 
fully with effects, where in the interest of efficiency the 
effort should be applied to causes. 

We hear about the futility of trying to educate chil- 
dren with empty stomachs. That is one side of the truth. 
It is equally true that you cannot educate children who 
are subnormally housed. Indeed we are a good deal 
like the Danaides and their sieve when we pour our 
millions and our energies into our public school system 
to educate children whom we foredoom to a stunted 
life by allowing them to live in surroundings whose whole 
tendency is to poison their souls and their bodies. 

Some persons were shocked when the report of the 
Provost Marshal General came out on the results of 
the first draft and showed that almost exactly a third of 
the young men called to the colors had been rejected 
for physical defects (29.11 per cent, rejected by local 



28 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

boards and 4 per cent, additional by the camp surgeons). 
In the thickly settled Middle Atlantic and New England 
states, the percentage of rejections was much higher. 
(Over 50 per cent, in Pennsylvania.) Really it was 
only what might have been expected from the kind of 
houses we are allowing American children to grow up in. 

The awakening is at hand. We are going to realize 
the need of human conservation, both because the human 
individual has a fundamental right to be conserved, and 
because the nation cannot get along without him. 

In the new democratic world which we hope for after 
the w^ar, that nation will be the most successful whose 
people as a whole attain the highest standards of health, 
morals and intelligence. The slave-driver's methods are 
of the past. Industrial efficiency is the product of in- 
dustrial contentment. Good citizenship is a product of 
normal family life. The other nations of the world are 
seeing to the housing of their people. Can we alone 
afford to neglect it? 



CHAPTER II 

HOUSING CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED 
STATES 

I. HOUSING HISTORY OF NEW YORK 

(i) The Settlements and Jacob Riis 

If the settlements had done nothing else, they would 
have justified the time, money and effort spent on them 
by cutting even a very small window through the blank 
wall of ignorance which used to stand between the poor 
and the well-to-do. Let any one who doubts the exist- 
ence of such a barrier read a few early housing reports. 
They refer to the dwellers in tenements as if they be- 
longed to some altogether strange species with which the 
writers had nothing in common. Even as late as 1894, 
in a Federal Government report bearing what would now 
be an unthinkable title, " The Slums of Baltimore, Chi- 
cago, New York and Philadelphia," we find slums defined 
thus : " dirty back streets, especially such streets as are in- 
habited by a squalid and criminal population." And 
then they are surprised by the lack of cordiality with 
which their investigators are received by those whom 
they have just labeled " a squalid and criminal popula- 
tion " ! 

In 1857 the first legislative committee appointed to 
examine into the condition of *' tenant houses " in New 
York and Brooklyn, decided (the italics are their own) 
" to proceed to a thorough personal inspection of tenant 
houses in every ward of the city." Safeguarded by a de- 
tail of police, guided by the chief of the sanitary bureau, 

29 



30 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

and accompanied by reporters, they " penetrated to lo- 
calities and witnessed scenes which in frightful novelty, 
far exceeded the limit of their previously conceived ideas 
of human degradation and suffering." The committee 
felt that they were indeed exploring a strange and hostile 
land in performing what they described as their " ardu- 
ous, painful, and as may be conjectured, hazardous 
duty." Again the italics are theirs. 

The admirable report on the Sanitary Condition of 
New York by the Council of Hygiene of the Citizens' 
Association in 1865 shows the same aloofness. Com- 
menting on the rapid spread of tenements, it calls at- 
tention to the danger *' of the entire absorption of the 
artisan and middle classes into the common herd of the 
utterly dependent and tenant-house class." Imagine any 
one writing about " the common herd " nowadays ! 

If we owe primarily to the settlements the speaking 
acquaintance we now have with our neighbors in the 
congested districts, the man who made it real to us, 
who awakened a general demand for housing reform, 
was that knight of the ready pen and great heart — 
^/ Jacob Riis. His book, " How the Other Half Lives," 
published in 1890, repeated the very things the com- 
mittees and commissions had been saying again and again 
since the fifties. But somehow he said them in a way 
that made them concrete and human and awoke a re- 
sponse in the popular heart. It is an open question 
whether the present New York tenement house law w^ould 
ever have come about if there had been no Jacob Riis. 

(2) Earliest Mentions 

Our knowledge of bad housing conditions in the United 
States begins in New York, where, naturally, congestion 
developed earliest, through the rapid growth of the 



Housing Conditions in the United States 31 

city, through the extent and character of immigration, 
and through the peculiar local topography. The rapid 
influx of immigrants after the war of 1812 brought 
the first consciousness of the problem. The earliest note 
of warning was from the health authorities. 

In 1834 Gerritt Forbes, the City Inspector (a health 
official), called attention in his report to the connection 
between bad housing and high death-rates. 

In 1842 and subsequent years, his successor, Dr. John 
H. Griscom, reported again and again the overcrowded 
and insanitary condition of New York's tenement houses, 
courts and cellar dwellings. Smallpox and typhus fever 
were always to be found in them, and epidemics of 
yellow fever and cholera issued from them from time 
to time. 

Soon afterward the humanitarian side of housing be- 
gan to be voiced in the annual reports of the Associa- 
tion for Improving the Condition of the Poor. In the 
Fourth Annual Report (1847) it is stated that the 
tenements of the poor in the city of New York are gen- 
erally defective in size, arrangement, water supply, 
warmth and ventilation, and that the rents charged for 
these wretched accommodations are disproportionately 
high. They had a scheme of launching a model hous-*^ 
ing company, but nothing came of it at that time. In 
1853 they appointed a committee on the Sanitary Con- 
dition of the Laboring Classes, whose report went with 
some detail into the housing evils encountered in the 
various wards. 

(3) The First Official Investigation — Legislative Com- 
mittee of iS^Y 

The State finally became aware of its responsibilities, 
and in 1856 the legislature appointed a sekct committee 



32 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

of five members ** to examine into the condition of 
tenant houses of New York and Brooklyn," — as already- 
related. Of Brooklyn they said that it was '' as yet but 
measurably afflicted with the tenant house system." 
They described the origin of the system in New York. 
The growth of the business part of the city led well-to-do 
families to move up town. Their former homes passed 
into the hands of real estate agents, who let them out to 
workingmen's families, one or two on a floor. At 
first they served a useful purpose. The houses were 
well built, the rooms large and airy, the rents low. But 
under the pressure of demand, rents rose, " large rooms 
were partitioned into several smaller ones, without re- 
gard to proper light or ventilation . . . and they soon 
became filled, from cellar to garret, with a class of 
tenantry living from hand to mouth, loose in morals, im- 
provident in habits, degraded or squalid as beggary it- 
self." The next step was the erection of rear houses 
(sometimes converted stables) in the once spacious yards. 
Finally it occurred to some enterprising builder that 
more money could be made by putting up barracks to cover 
the whole lot. 

No legal restrictions existed as to light, air, water, 
sanitary conveniences, repairs or occupancy, except a few 
weak provisions in the interest of fire prevention. The 
committee not unnaturally stated as their opinion that 
" The tenant house is the offspring of municipal neglect, 
as well as of its primary causes, over-population and des- 
titution." 

The fifty-four pages of this report present conditions 
of filth, dilapidation, overcrowding, degradation, dark 
rooms, offensive privies, lack of water, high rents and ex- 
orbitant profits nearly unbelievable at the present day. 



Housing Conditions in the United States 33 

We quote almost at random : " One room, 12 feet by 12, 
in which were five resident famihes comprising twenty 
persons, of both sexes and all ages — " After several 
pages of similar incidents, the committee sum up their im- 
pression as follows : " Dim, undrained courts, oozing 
with pollution; dark, narrow stairways, decayed with 
age, reeking with filth, over-run with vermin ; rotted floors, 
ceilings begrimed and often too low to permit you to stand 
upright; the windows stuffed with rags." They describe 
a cellar lodging house at 17 Baxter Street, where from 
six pence to a shilling a night was charged and the 
average number of occupants to a bed was three, with 
no distinction between male and female. It is stated 
that in the upper part of this house twelve families com- 
prising seventy-five persons lived in twelve rooms. We 
are told of a rear building at 39 Baxter Street, where 
the committee found fifteen persons living in one room, 
the height of which was 7 feet and the floor space 15 by 
14, the rent being $6 per month. 

These rents are surprising, for we are accustomed to 
think of high rents as a modern evil, and we know that 
wages were very much lower at that time than now. 
But apparently $4 to $7 was the usual rental for a 
single room and $5 to $9 for two rooms, one of 
which was generally dark. We hear of a family with 
a monthly income of $8 living in a garret for which 
they paid $4. Profits were said to be calculated at 
15 to 30 per cent, net, and even higher. Of the rear 
house at 39 Baxter Street it is further said : " To 
reach these premises it was necessary to pass through an 
alley the widest portion of which was but two feet, the 
narrowest nineteen inches. In case of fire, escape to the 
street would be a miracle." 



34 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

The report classifies the prevalent housing defects un- 
der want of air, want of water, want of room, want of 
light and cleanliness, and want of plan. 

Under want of water (page 35) wx find an incident 
which sounds, mutatis mutandis, strangely familiar. 
" It is useless to supply these people with w^ater," re- 
marked a landlord to a member of the committee; '' they 
don't know its use! They let the pipes freeze up; they 
let the water run away; sometimes the pipes burst and 
over-flow the house ! I can assure you these tenants only 
abuse water!" Substitute bath-tub for water, and it 
might have happened yesterday. 

The one-room dwelling, which means a single room 
inhabited by an entire family, was distressingly prevalent, 
with all its attendant degradation and vice. Obviously, 
with rents and wages as they were, it was sheer necessity 
for a considerable part of the population. 

By want of plan, the committee mean want of regula- 
tion. They point out that under proper municipal re- 
strictions and w^ith legitimate profits in mind, comfortable 
and wholesome homes could be built and rented for no 
more than the unfortunate tenants were paying for their 
existing wretched quarters. 

They quote from the New York Daily Times of 
March 28, 1856, the following: ''Our experience, like 
that of the cities of the old world, is that the avarice of 
capitalists renders governmental interference for the pro- 
tection of the poor and unfortunate an absolute neces- 
sity." 

The report of the legislative committee concludes with 
a very significant statement : " The tenant house is the 
legitimate point at which to commence the positive work 
of social reform." 

The commission recommended : 



Housing Conditions in the United States 35 

1. An enactment against permitting the renting of 
underground apartments or cellars as tenements. 

2. Regulations as to the building of halls and stair- 
ways in houses occupied by more than three families, 
so as to insure easy egress in case of fire. 

3. The prevention of prostitution and incest by pro- 
viding that only a sufficient number of rooms, or a room 
properly divided into separate apartments, shall be rented 
to families, and by prohibiting sub-letting. 

4. The prevention of drunkenness by providing for 
every man a clean and comfortable home. 

The first and second recommendations have been meas- 
urably carried out, though it took many a long year to 
do it. Of the third, it may be said that conditions have 
improved, though they are still far from satisfactory. 
The fourth represents a goal as yet a long way in the 
future. 

(4) Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public 
Health, 1865 

In 1856 the death-rate of New York was 32.7 per 1000 
of population. After the Civil War conditions became 
worse. A death-rate of 35.32 in 1865 startled think- 
ing citizens into action. 

The Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the 
Citizens' Association of New York made an elaborate 
investigation and report, already alluded to, on the sani- 
tary condition of the city. This was primarily a health 
survey, in which contagious diseases, mortality statistics, 
street cleaning, and various other aspects of municipal 
sanitation were considered. The lion's share of atten- 
tion, however, was devoted to the tenant houses. There 
were 15,309 of them at that date, with a population of 
about 480,000. In spite of the recommendations of 



^6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

the legislative committee, 15,000 people were still living 
in cellars. Some of these cellars were below sea level 
and had water constantly standing in them. Sometimes 
it was sewage. A mother with a new-born baby was 
described as lying on a bed elevated on boxes to lift it 
above the water. Back-yard privies abounded, with 
over-flowing vaults. Open gutters ran with sewage. 
Garbage was thrown into the streets. Decaying animal 
and vegetable matter was everywhere. Pigs and goats 
roamed through the streets acting as scavengers. (This 
was stopped in 1867.) Tenement houses were built 
seven and eight stories high. 

As a sample of lot overcrowding, take the " Rookery " 
located in the region between Broadway and the Bowery. 
It consisted of a front, middle, and rear building, com- 
pletely covering the lot, except that between the front and 
middle buildings was a space of six feet and between the 
middle and rear buildings a space of one foot. 

One of the most notorious barrack houses of this 
period, Gotham Court, was built, sad to relate, by a 
benevolent Quaker in the early fifties under the im- 
pression that it was a model tenement. This five-story 
structure was 34 feet wide by 234 feet long. One long 
side was bounded by a nine- foot alley with a high build- 
ing on the other side. The other long side was bounded 
by a seven- foot alley with a high building opposite. One 
short end was contiguous to the blank wall of another 
building. The other short end faced on Cherry Street. 
Each apartment consisted of two rooms, one dark. The 
entrances were from the alleys. The privies were in 
the cellar, and the stench was offensive as far up as the 
third story. They were sewer connected (because it 
was a model tenement probably), and the sewers ran 
out under the two alleys, with ventilating gratings in 



Housing Conditions in the United States 37 

the pavement every few feet. The effluvia from these 
gratings were almost unbearable. Yet it would appear 
that the gratings were finally closed, rather because they 
afforded too convenient a means of escape to thieves than 
for sanitary reasons. The denizens of the (literally) 
underworld who habitually used the sewers as a thor- 
oughfare were known as " swamp angels." 

Dr. E. R. Pulling, who made the housing investiga- 
tion and report for the already densely crowded Fourth 
Ward, and accompanied it by a valuable sanitary map, 
came to the following conclusion : " The establishment 
of suitable residences for the poor, if not accomplished 
by private enterprise, should become a subject of muni- 
cipal and legislative action.'* 

This report of the Citizens' Association resulted in the 
establishment of the present Department of Health ( 1866) 
and the enactment of the first tenement house law ( 1867). 
One provision of this law prohibited the occupancy of 
cellar rooms unless the ceiling was at least one foot 
above the level of the street. 

Conditions improved, but not fast enough. Alfred 
T. White experimented in real model housing over in 
Brooklyn. The agitation continued, and the tenement 
house law of 1879 was passed. This required for the 
first time that no more houses should be built with dark 
interior rooms. Each room was to have a window 
opening to the outer air. 

This was not such a thorough-going reform as it may 
sound, for out of its provisions grew the dumb-bell or 
double-decker tenement, the prevailing style of archi- 
tecture from 1879 to 1901. It was built on the regula- 
tion 25-foot lot and was usually 90 feet in depth, leav- 
ing a lo-foot yard at the rear. At each side was an 
air shaft from fifty to sixty feet long and twenty-eight 



38 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

inches wide, except in the middle of the dumb-bell, where 
it broadened to about five feet. There were four apart- 
ments on each floor. The front flats usually had four 
rooms each and the rear flats three. Each had, there- 
fore, one room opening on street or yard and the rest 
on the^ir shaft, on which also opened the two water- 
closets per floor which the law now required for four 
families. 

These dumb-bell tenements did, of course, represent 
an advance over the old solid ones, as toilets on each floor, 
one to every two families, represented an advance over 
yard privies and school sinks or cellar water-closets. 
But the result, especially where the houses were six stories 
high, was still intolerable. The chief function of the air 
shaft often seemed to be the interchange of smells, pro- 
fanity and bacteria, " Gigantic culture tubes," some one 
called them. 



(5) Tenement House Commission of i( 

The next forward step was the appointment by the 
Governor in 1884 of a commission *' to investigate the 
character and condition of tenement houses in New 
York " and report to the legislature with recommenda- 
tions. Joseph W. Drexel was chairman and Felix Adler 
was one of the members.-^ At this time there were 26,000 
tenement houses, of which 3,000 were rear houses. 

The commission made a number of recommendations, 
most of which were embodied in the 1887 amendments 

1 The appointment of this commission came as the direct result 
of a series of sermons on the tenement house evil delivered before 
the Ethical Culture Society by Dr. Adler. Another result was the 
organization of the Tenement House Building Company, which 
opened model houses on Cherry Street in 1887. Of scarcely less 
interest is the fact that one of these sermons, which he was report- 
ing for the New York Sun, started Jacob Riis on his crusade. 



Housing Conditions in the United States 39 

of the tenement house law. These reforms were not 
achieved without a struggle, witness the provision for 
running water on each floor. In practice that meant a 
hall sink, an improvement over a hydrant in the yard, 
but not a very radical requirement, one would suppose. 
Yet Trinity Church Corporation, which was a large 
owner of tenement house property, fought this section of 
the law most bitterly. The Court of Common Pleas 
ruled that it was unconstitutional. It was not until 1895 
that the Court of Appeals reversed this judgment and the 
law became operative. 

The 1887 legislation abolished privy vaults, permitting 
school sinks to be installed in their place. An excellent 
feature was the establishment of 65 per cent, as the 
maximum proportion of an interior lot which buildings 
erected in the future might cover. The pressure against 
this was so great, however, as to bring about an amend- 
ment, under which the Board of Health was permitted to 
grant exemptions at its discretion, which largely nulli- 
fied the law. Cellar floors were to be concreted. The 
definition of a tenement house was changed to include 
three-family houses. It had formerly been ** more than 
three." The sanitary inspection force of the Board of 
Health was increased from thirty to forty, and semi- 
annual inspection of tenements was ordered. But the 
order was never carried out, because the force was still 
much too small. The creation of a park at Mulberry 
Bend, replacing some of the most objectionable old build- 
ings, was one of the results of the work of this commis- 
sion. 

Meanwhile the Neighborhood Guild and the College 
Settlement had been started, and through them many peo- 
ple were getting a first-hand knowledge of tenement 
houses and their occupants. And Jacob Riis was passing 



40 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

on this knowledge, second-hand, but still vital and human, 
to a much wider audience. 

(6) Tenement House Committee of i8p4 

In 1894 another tenement house commission, called a 
committee this time, was appointed, of which Richard 
Watson Gilder was chairman. The death-rate in New 
York City at this period had fallen to 21.03. That shows 
a big improvement over earlier times, but a condition still 
far from ideal. Immigrants were pouring in. Farmers' 
boys and girls were flocking to the city. 

The Board of Health estimated at this time that there 
were 39,000 tenement houses in New York. Of these it 
had listed 2,425, containing 15,726 families, as having 
bad structural or sanitary conditions. The agents of 
the committee visited these first. Eventually they 
visited 8,441 houses. Most of their statistics refer to 
3,984 houses with 33,485 apartments and 86,902 rooms, 
and a population of 121,323 people. Among these they 
found 7,279 apartments, with 16,756 dark rooms, af- 
fecting 71,015 persons. They found 37,469 persons de- 
pending on toilets listed as " bad " and 38,157 on toilets 
listed as " very bad." Only 306 out of 255,033 persons 
investigated had access to bath-tubs. In hundreds of 
cases from 90 to 100 per cent, of the lot was covered by 
buildings. More than five-sixths of the houses had their 
toilet arrangements in the yard, and nearly half of the 
remainder in the cellar. Only fifty-one were supplied 
with toilets in their apartments. A trifle over half the 
houses had their water supply in the hall. Five hundred 
and twenty-seven houses (over one-eighth) were de- 
pendent on a yard supply. The remainder had water 
in the apartment. More than one- fourth of the houses 
had no fire escapes, and more than another fourth had 



Housing Conditions in the United States 41 

improper or insufficient ones. Bad conditions of halls 
and cellars, and various manifestations of dirt and 
dilapidation are also tabulated. 

These summaries do not agree with the highly opti- 
mistic generalizations of the federal report of the same 
date already mentioned (" The Slums of Baltimore, Chi- 
cago, New York and Philadelphia"), which states on 
page 100 : " The extraordinary freedom from sickness 
in the slums of New York reflects great credit on the 
health board of that city. In 31 1 tenements visited not a 
single adult sick in bed was seen, except where the sick- 
ness was due to an increase in the population, and very 
few children. Of what village of the same popula- 
tion can the same statement be made ? " And on the 
following page we are told : " Without any exception 
it was found that the air in the tenement houses was as 
pure as in any residence visited.'' A comparison of the 
data accumulated and methods employed in the two re- 
ports will leave little doubt as to which should be given 
more weight. 

The writer's personal acquaintance with New York 
tenements dates from about this period and is limited 
to an area within easy walking distance of the Riving- 
ton Street College Settlement and a branch library it had 
on Mulberry Street. The writer was young and inex- 
perienced. The years since have been filled with many 
things. But the impression remains strong of dark 
and usually dirty halls, rickety balusters, and gloomy 
rooms. Whether these rooms were clean or dirty de- 
pended on the family living in them. But in only one 
room of each suite (the one opening on street or yard) 
was it possible to see to do anything at mid-day with- 
out artificial light. 

The legislation (1895) which resulted from the recom- 



42 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

^//tnendations of the Committee of 1894 made some provi- 
sion for small parks and playgrounds in congested dis- 
tricts and for an increase in the force of sanitary inspec- 
tors. It provided that a basement or cellar dwelling 
should have its ceiling at least two feet above the street 
level. Too much discretion was left with the Health De- 
partment about many matters, and a backward step was 
taken by lowering the 600 cubic feet of air space per 
person, required by the act of 1879, to 400 cubic feet for 
adults and 200 for children. It cannot, however, be said 
that the provisions of 1879 had ever been enforced. 

(7) Tenement House Commission of ipoo 

The next important official source of information about 
housing conditions in New York is the report of the 
Tenement House Commission of 1900. Meanwhile 
Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx had 
been joined to Manhattan to form Greater New York. 
Brooklyn, especially, had a large tenement house popu- 
lation. So the startling figures of 82,652 tenement 
houses, inhabited by 2,372,079 persons, represent an- 
nexation as well as growth. 

In the early days only the poor lived in tenements, 
but the flats and apartment houses grew apace to fit the 
needs of various pocketbooks. As the total population 
of Greater New York in 1900 was 3,437,202, it will read- 
ily be seen how large a proportion of its people were 
living in multiple dwellings. It would be rash to con- 
clude that all those who paid high rent got wholesome 
quarters, but it is naturally those paying low rents who 
got the worst, and it is with these we must concern 
ourselves. 

There were 350,000 dark interior rooms in Greater 
New York at this time, as has already been stated. 



Housing Conditions in the United States 43 

(Robert de Forest, Introduction, " The Tenement House 
Problem,*' 1903, p. xvii.) The commission found that 
some progress had been made since the report of the 
Tenement House Committee of 1894 in the installation 
of toilets and city water and in regard to cellar dwellings. 
The worst existing evils were insufficiency of light and 
air, danger from fire, lack of separate toilet and wash- 
ing facilities, overcrowding, and dirty cellars and courts 
and other defects which come under the head of bad 
housekeeping. 

The recommendations of this commission and their 
results (the tenement house law of 1901 and the crea- 
tion of the Tenement House Department for New York 
City) must be studied in the next chapter. We are con- 
cerned here with the effects of this legislation on housing 
conditions, which have been marked and good. The 
standards set by the law were the highest set by any 
law at that time, and probably no other housing law 
in the United States has been so well enforced. 

The New York tenement house law (applicable only 
to cities of the first class), provides, broadly speaking, 
for three things: (i) a fairly high minimum standard 
in structure and sanitation for buildings to be erected or 
altered in the future, (2) a much lower standard for 
buildings already in existence, and (3) a uniform stand- 
ard of maintenance (cleanliness and repairs) for all. 

Only in a comparative sense can even the new-law 
tenement be said to represent a satisfactory housing stand- 
ard. Builders and real estate men bitterly fought and 
still bitterly fight any limitation of their expected profits 
from future ventures. The abnormally high value of 
real estate in New York City automatically limits stand- 
ards, if costs are to be kept within the renting limits of 
those of moderate means. The standards set were prob- 



44 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

ably the best attainable. It will not be claimed that they 
are adequate. Too large a proportion of the lot is built 
upon. Courts are too small, yards are too shallow. 
Rooms should be larger. Non-fireproof houses are per- 
mitted to be higher than is safe. Bathrooms are not 
obligatory. They are, however, in practice, fast be- 
coming the rule. 

Yet new building requirements damage nothing more 
material than hopes of gain. Retroactive restrictions, 
obligatory improvements in already existing houses, rep- 
resent, on the other hand, a compulsory outlay in hard 
cash, and in most cases, or so the owners argue, a pro- 
portionate reduction in the profits of an investment al- 
ready made. The vested interests involved are enorm- 
ous, and the fight against the enactment of the tenement 
house law correspondingly strong. Nor has the struggle 
ever abated. Not a session of the legislature passes 
without efforts to repeal or weaken the law, and it is 
only preserved at the cost of eternal vigilance. Natu- 
rally, the provisions in regard to old buildings are a com- 
promise and a far from satisfactory one. Nearly every 
point was fought in the courts, and many years passed 
before it was possible to enforce even the modest re- 
quirements of the law. 

The unsatisfactory expedient in regard to dark rooms 
of cutting a window into an adjoining room was dis- 
cussed in the first chapter. 

Similarly, the law went no farther than to require 
the abolition of yard privies and school sinks, permitting 
yard or cellar water-closets to continue where they al- 
ready existed or to be installed in the place of privies and 
school sinks. But even this requirement was not com- 
pletely in effect until 191 6. 

The writer has some first-hand acquaintance with the 



Housing Conditions in the United States 45 

present condition of old-law tenements in Manhattan and 
Brooklyn. The excellent inspection force of the Tene- 
ment House Department secure from the owners, as a 
rule, a fairly satisfactory standard of cleanliness and re- 
pairs — a much higher standard than is enforced in any 
other American city. Nevertheless, the writer has seen 
houses within three years in the disorderly colored dis- 
trict of San Juan Hill which are a disgrace to civilization. 

Conceding the exceptional character of such houses 
(and of their tenants), there can be no question of the 
enormous improvements which have taken place since 
the fifties and sixties, or even since the eighties and 
nineties. But by no decent standard can present con- 
ditions be described as satisfactory. Semi-dark rooms, 
whether in dumb-bell houses or in railroad flats with 
windows between the rooms, are not fit to sleep or live 
in. Toilets in yards and cellars are neither sanitary 
nor morally safe. According to a census taken by the 
Tenement House Department in February, 19 16, there 
were still 9,690 yard water-closets belonging to 2,802 
tenement houses in Manhattan alone, with 17,878 fam- 
ilies, or approximately 80,000 people, dependent on them. 

Cellar dwellings are prohibited in new buildings, but 
are allowed in old-law buildings if the ceiling is two feet 
above ground and the Tenement House Department 
grants a permit. Basement apartments are permitted 
in all buildings. They are defined as being at least half 
(which means at least 4}^ feet) above the level of the 
pavement. Yet they are not fit places to bring up chil- 
dren in, and the cellar apartments are, naturally, less so. 

2. HOUSING HISTORY OF OTHER LOCALITIES 

It is neither possible nor desirable to discuss housing 
conditions throughout the coimtry with the fullness with 



46 Hoiising of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

which those of New York have just been described. The 
housing conditions of the metropolis are of primary im- 
portance because of sheer bulk, because of the acute- 
ness of evil conditions, which are nevertheless thoroughly 
typical, and because of the energetic and costly measures 
taken to bring about relief. Nowhere else has conges- 
tion been so great, nowhere else has the tenement house 
problem loomed so large, nowhere else has it been neces- 
sary to deal with so vast an aggregation of people or so 
tremendous a grouping of vested rights. But as it is 
true, on the one hand, that nowhere else in this country, 
perhaps nowhere else in the world, have housing condi- 
tions been so outrageously bad, so, on the other hand, 
it is true that nowhere else in this country at least, has 
so strong, so persistent, and on the whole so successful 
a fight for reform been waged. 

If the housing problems of New York have been unique 
in extent, they have been perfectly typical in kind. A 
few instances, taken from various parts of the country, 
will serve to show how history repeats itself. 

(i) Washington, D. C. 

Nothing is known of housing troubles in Washington 
until the latter part of the Civil War. A stream of 
refugee slaves created the first problem. They were 
destitute. They were shelterless. Something had to 
be done. Charitable people let them occupy the serv- 
ants' quarters at the far end of their deep back yards. 
Unused stables were made over into houses for them. 
Flimsy barrack buildings were put up on rear lots. 
The refugees used the service alleys for ingress and 
egress. 

Major r Enfant designed the capital city on generous 
Hues, with broad streets and deep lots. It was an ad- 



Housing Conditions in the United States 47 

mirable design, except that it took no account of the' 
poor man, in that it provided no possibiHty of cheap 
building sites. The service alleys became residence 
streets to fill the need. 

Many well-to-do people found themselves in strait- 
ened circumstances after the war, and a great deal of 
property changed hands. Shacks at the foot of the 
garden, originally given free of charge to negro refugees, 
were fenced off from their street-front neighbors and 
rented for all the trade would bear. There was so 
much profit in it that rows and rows of shoddy little 
four-room brick dwellings were put up during the seven- 
ties, facing on the alleys and rented to negroes. 

Here, to be sure, was no lack of light or air, nor 
were the rooms as a rule excessively small. The trouble 
lay in the utter neglect of sanitation. Neither sewers 
nor water mains ran through the alleys. Yard privies 
were universal. A hydrant at the street corner might 
provide the only water supply for several hundred peo- 
ple. There were no pavements, no lights, no provision 
for the removal of garbage. 

In the early seventies the newly created Board of 
Health began calling attention to the deplorable sanitary 
conditions, the high death-rate, the appalling infant 
mortality, and the resulting danger to the rest of the 
city. Some agitation by citizens resulted. But it was 
not until 1892 that Congress passed a law prohibiting 
any further building of dwelling houses on alley lots. 
This prohibition, with the activity of the Board of Con- 
demnation of Insanitary Buildings (created in 1906), 
has reduced the number of alley houses from nearly 4,000 
to about 3,000, the population falling from 25,000 to 
11,000. Other factors contributed to this decrease in 
population, especially the educational process which has 



48 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

led many alley residents to seek other homes. About 500 
alley houses are vacant.^ 

Meanwhile many improvements have been carried out. 
The alleys have been paved and lighted and given the 
benefit of equal street cleaning and garbage-removal serv- 
ice with the rest of the city. Water has been piped 
through and each house has its own yard hydrant. 
Water indoors is still exceptional. The yard privies have 
been superseded by yard water-closets with sewer con- 
nections. These changes mean much. On the other 
hand, the field force of the Health Department is so small 
that inspections can be made only on complaint. The 
result is a degree of dilapidation — broken plaster, rotted 
boards, leaking roofs, and the like — which would be 
impossible in an adequately inspected city Hke New York. 

Health conditions have greatly improved. The alley 
death-rate in 1875 ^^'^^ estimated at 65 per 1,000.^ In 
1912 it was 28.52. But as the death-rate on the streets 
for the same year was 17.32, it will be seen that the alley 
still has a good deal to answer for. One baby out of 
four born in the alleys dies within a year. Not long 
ago it was one in three. The tuberculosis death-rate is 
fifty per cent, higher among alley negroes than among 
negroes living on the street. 

The moral aspects of the alleys are as bad as the 
physical. Their inhabitants are hidden away out of 
sight, removed from the restraining influence of public 
opinion. Every chance favors the corruption of the 
innocent by the vicious. Half of the children born in 

1 Just previous to the war. The house famine which the war 
brought to Washington has probably filled them again. 

2 The general death-rate among the colored population of Wash- 
ington in 1875 was 4:2.86 per 1,000. Among the whites it was 21.04. 
Report of Committee on Building of Model Houses, President's 
Homes Commission, 1908, p. 3$. 



Hoiising Conditions in the United States 49 

the alleys are illegitimate as against one in twelve for 
the city, or one in five for the general colored popula- 
tion. 

The police court blotters tell a similar story. The 
Superintendent of Police gives in his report for 19 12 
the percentage of arrests to total population in Wash- 
ington as 10.13, and the percentage of arrests of colored 
persons to total colored population as 18.93. In a study 
of four typical alleys with a population of five hundred 
and forty, the writer found the percentage of arrests to 
population was 35.93, or very nearly twice that of the 
general colored population. ( " Four Washington Al- 
leys,*' The Survey, Dec. 16, 19 13.) 

There are few tenements in Washington, but those few 
are particularly bad. There are not many dark rooms, but 
the dark room exists. There are numerous ramshackle 
frame buildings on the streets, as well as in the alleys, of 
dilapidated and disreputable appearance. The writer 
a few years ago called the attention of the Board of' 
Condemnation to a group of three leaning against each 
other at three different angles from the perpendicular, 
presenting an aspect of extreme intoxication. They 
were within two or three blocks of the British Embassy, 
Dupont Circle, and other landmarks of the northwest 
residence section. This group was torn down, but hun- 
dreds, nearly as bad, remain. 

Rents are, as always, an important element. They 
average about $8 ^ in the alleys for a four-room house. 
On the streets they are much higher. Very few houses or 
apartments on the streets rent for under $15. Colored 
tenants have to pay from $18 to $20. These rents were 
for the period just before the war. The unskilled wage 
earners among them must, therefore, choose between 

* Pre-war rate. 



50 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

living in alleys and the sub-letting and overcrowding 
evil. 

It will be necessary now to move still more rapidly in 
our survey, and, omitting history, give the merest indi- 
cation of present housing conditions in a number of 
our cities. There is no North, South, East or West. 
With slight local variations in emphasis, all have the 
same problems. 

(2) Boston 

In 1 89 1 The Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of 
Labor made a monumental census of tenement houses in 
Boston (by which it meant rented houses or apartments) 
and published the results in two volumes. Its investiga- 
tions included 311,396 persons, comprising 71,665 fam- 
ilies. Of these it classified 12.07 P^^ cent, as living under 
bad or poor conditions as respects light, ventilation and 
cleanliness. 

In 1903-4, a Commission to Investigate Tenement 
House Conditions, appointed by the Mayor, reported 
that there were 5,844 dark rooms in tenement houses, 
and tenement houses in Boston do not include three-fam- 
ily dwellings. 

The Housing Committee of the Boston 191 5 Movement 
reported in 1910 on a study of ten typical blocks in vari- 
ous parts of the city that the percentage of dark rooms 
varied from 13 to 18. In the last 125 houses visited 
by the inspector of the Women's Municipal League (re- 
port of March i, 19 18) 9 per cent, of the rooms were 
dark. Many typical instances of bad housing are de- 
scribed in a bulletin of the Department of Housing of 
the Women's Municipal League, bearing the date, 
February, 1916. It is the result of five years of pains- 
taking investigation by a trained stafT. Restrictive hous- 



Housing Conditions in the United States 51 

ing legislation in Boston has been inadequately developed 
and is inadequately enforced. Insanitary toilets in in- 
sufficient numbers, located in cellars and other objec- 
tionable places, stopped-up drains, dark halls, fire hazards 
(unsafe lamps in halls, accumulations of rubbish in 
cellars, and improper fire escapes) are described at length 
and made vivid by photographs. Some improvement 
has been made in the matter of basement and cellar dwel- 
lings. Over i,6cx) were knov^n to be inhabited in 19 14. 
Since the basement law was passed in 19 15 more than 
900 of these have been vacated. 

The Third Annual Report of the Massachusetts Home- 
stead, Commission (for 19 15, pubHshed 19 16) gives 
density and mortality statistics and other housing data, 
not only for Boston, but for the mill towns. Massa- 
chusetts has the third largest number of persons per 
dwelling in the United States, 6.6 (New York and Rhode 
Island being higher), according to the 19 10 census, and 
is one of the five states in which this density figure is 
increasing. Infant mortality and tuberculosis figures are 
shown in connection with housing conditions, and the bad 
eminence of Fall River in both respects perhaps bears 
more than an accidental relation to the fact that this 
city has persistently refused to adopt the state tenement 
house law or to appoint a town planning board. 

The infant death-rate (number of deaths under one 
year old to 1,000 births) was 186 in 19 10, reduced to 
169.7 i^ 19 14 foJ* Fall River. Lowell had 231.9 in 1910 
and 146,3 in 1914. But compare New Zealand's 51 in 
1914 and Letchworth's 38. 

(3) San Francisco 

The Western states often put the older communities 
of the East to shame by the promptness and thorough- 



52 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

ness with which they adopt progressive measures. What 
has happened in San Francisco? What occurred after 
the earthquake has already been described (pp. 20, 

21). 

In the reports of the San Francisco Housing Associa- 
tion, besides a record of great laxity in law enforcement, 
and the lot overcrowding, there are constant references 
to room overcrowding. The following paragraph from 
the first report (1911) will do for a sample: " In four 
blocks on Telegraph Hill the number of persons per hun- 
dred bedrooms are 206, 246, 229, 202, with 229 per- 
sons in 84 bedrooms in the Cuneo flats." The second 
report (19 13) deplores the prevalence of two-room apart- 
ments and the fire risk of wooden tenements. The 
Second Annual Report of the Commission of Immigra- 
tion and Housing of Cahfornia (1916) describes ** the 
wretched shacks and tenements on Telegraph Hill " and 
calls attention to the fact that the most dilapidated and 
insanitary shacks are without supervision because they 
are not tenements. What they lose on this account, 
however, cannot be a very thorough supervision, for 
San Francisco had but two tenement house inspectors, 
who were secured in 19 14 after several years of effort 
by the Housing Association. 

(4) Baltimore 

Has any one an idea that there is something local 
about the greed of Northern and Western landlords, or 
that housing problems are less pressing in the South? 
There is a report of a special committee of the Associa- 
tion for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the 
Charity Organization Society, on " Housing Conditions 
in Baltimore," embodying the results of an investigation 
made by Janet E. Kemp in 1907, which tends to destroy 



Housing Conditions in the United States 53 

any" such illusion. Of 1,174 apartments inhabited by 
negroes and foreign-born whites, 15.1 per cent, were 
found to consist of one room only, and nearly half of the 
one-room apartments were the homes of from three to 
eight people. There were forty-eight dark rooms, prac- 
tically no fire escapes, widely prevalent dilapidation, 
water nearly always limited to a yard hydrant, surface 
drainage and yard privies all but universal. An article 
in the Survey of September, 191 1, quotes the Health De- 
partment report of 1903 estimating that there were at 
that time 90,000 earth closets in Baltimore. In 191 1 
the installation of a modern system of sewers was under 
way. It has since been completed. New houses have 
to connect with the sewers, and efforts are being made 
to get the old houses connected. But much remains to 
be done. 

(5) Richmond 

There is a report published in 19 13 on " Housing and 
Living Conditions in the Neglected Sections of Rich- 
mond," by Gustavus A. Weber, Secretary of the Society 
for the Betterment of Housing and Living Conditions. 
Dilapidation, room overcrowding, lack of water (negro 
tenants often have to carry water the distance of a city 
block from the nearest hydrant), lack of sewers and 
sewer connection, unpaved streets, excessive rents for 
negroes, lack of adequate arrangements for the disposal 
of ashes, trash and garbage, seem to be the prevailing 
troubles. There is little lack of light and air so far, 
but as the city is growing rapidly and there is no legal 
restriction on the percentage of a lot that may be built 
on, this evil will doubtless soon become manifest. 

Incidentally, Richmond has the highest death-rate but 
one (Memphis) of the fifty largest cities in the United 



54 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

States. Of course, cities with a large negro population 
are at a disadvantage in comparing crude death-rates, be- 
cause the negro death-rate in all places of which we have 
knowledge, exceeds the white. But the death-rate among 
Richmond's whites is also well above the average. 

(6) Chicago 

In 191 5 the new Department of Public Welfare of Chi- 
cago published a housing survey of the Italian district of 
the Seventeenth Ward. In the four blocks studied much 
overcrowding was found. Forty-two per cent, of all 
sleeping rooms were illegally overcrowded. Four men 
slept in a small room affording only 152 cubic feet of 
air per man. Lodgers constituted 25 per cent, of 
the population. Ten per cent, of the apartments 
w^ere in cellars or basements, many of them dark and 
damp. Most of the houses were old, 55 per cent, were 
frame, 20 per cent, of them in distinctly bad repair. 
Eleven per cent, of the buildings covered 100 per cent, 
of their lots and had no adjoining open spaces, 41 per 
cent, covered more than 80 per cent, of the lot. Twenty- 
five per cent, were rear houses. Twenty-two rooms had 
no windows, 66 had windows into other rooms only, 146 
opened into inadequate outer space. Two blocks (with 
877 people) had only two bath-tubs between them. 

The Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy has 
been bringing out a series of district housing studies for 
some years past. They all tell a similar story. 

(7) St. Louis 

St. Louis is worse off than Chicago, in that it suffers 
from a shocking lack of sewer connection. There is a 
report on '' Housing Conditions in St. Louis " in 1908, 
written by Charlotte Rumbold of the Housing Com- 



Housing Conditions in the United States 55 

mittee of the Civic League. The survey covered 48 
blocks. There was much lot overcrowding. There 
were rear and alley houses, sometimes middle houses, in 
some cases four houses on a hundred-foot-deep lot. In 
18 cases 100 per cent, of the lot was built upon. Of 
the 2,022 toilet accommodations in the district, 1,818, 
or 89.9 per cent., were privies, which served 91.9 per 
cent, of the population, or 12,251 people. In one case 
134 persons used four compartments over a single vault. 
The houses on the street, for the most part, were not 
built for tenements, but were converted residences'. 
Dilapidation was the rule, especially in the rear houses. 
There were dark rooms and basement dwellings. Some- 
times the per capita air space was as low as 178 cubic 
feet. Three people lived in a shed 7 feet high with 5 
by 6 floor space. Yard hydrants furnished the usual 
water supply. The district contained 435 one-room 
dwellings. On page 74 this significant statement is 
made : " A description of New York's tenement streets 
in i860 sounds as though they were Seventh and Eighth 
Streets in St. Louis in 1908." 

A pamphlet published by the National Housing As- 
sociation, " What Our Cities Do Not Know," giving data 
for 19 14, puts the number of privy vaults in St. Louis 
at 20,000 and states that 80 per cent, of them are on 
sewered streets and consequently without a shadow of 
excuse for their existence. 

(8) Philadelphia 

St. Louis and Baltimore are not alone in the matter 
of privy vaults. There is also Philadelphia. The City 
of Brotherly Love, also called the City of Homes, had, ac- 
cording to the police census of 19 14, 39,078 such vaults. 
As there had been 60,000 in 191 1, the reduction, at least, 



56 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

shows commendable activity. Between 19 14 and May, 
1917, 24,397 vaults were abandoned, but the remaining 
number is greater than the difference between the two 
figures, because new ones are still being built. 

The Fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Hous- 
ing Commission (1914) quoting the records of the 
Health Department for 1912, states that of 13,534 apart- 
ments in 2,874 tenements which had been studied, 27.4 
per cent, were of one room, 37.1 per cent, of two rooms, 
16.8 of three rooms, 8.5 of four rooms, and 10 per cent, 
of more than four rooms. 

During 19 14, the Philadelphia Housing Commission 
investigated 6,641 complaints, of which 6,439 proved to 
be well founded, dealing with cellar dwellings, room 
overcrowding (e. g., fifteen and twenty-two persons in 
three rooms) surface drainage, filth, leaks, dark rooms, 
immoral occupancy, and lack of water supply. The last 
is a frequent defect, especially in the courts and alleys. 
The Housing Commission in 19 12 reported instances of 
12, 14, 16, and even 18 houses sharing one outdoor 
hydrant. The law in effect previous to the housing code 
passed in 191 5 set a minimum of one hydrant for three 
houses with a common court or yard, which was certainly 
bad enough. 

A curious thing about Philadelphia is that pigs were 
permitted to be kept in the thickly settled parts of the 
city until quite recently. A start was made to do away 
with this condition, the 40,000 piggeries of a few years 
ago having been reduced to about 10,000 by the spring 
of 191 7, when the Health Department at last decreed 
that all must go. 

Philadelphia is justly proud of the number of her 
working people who are able to live in one- family houses. 
(" One Million People in Small Homes," Helen Parrish, 



Housing Conditions in the United States S7 

The Survey, May 6, 191 1), but such tenements as Phil- 
adelphia has are more neglected and objectionable than 
those of New York. 

(9) Cincinnati 

Touching the housing conditions in this city, perhaps 
it is permissible to quote a remark made by Mr. Veiller in 
his oral report to the National Housing Conference of 
1916. He said the slums of Cincinnati and St. Louis 
embodied his idea of hell. In the printed proceedings, 
the meaning is less picturesquely expressed. 

(10) Providence 

" The Houses of Providence,'* a study made during the 
summer of 19 16, by John Ihlder, Madge Headley and 
Udetta D. Brown, notes serious lot overcrowding and 
great fire hazards due to three- and four-story wooden 
tenements built close together. Many densely populated 
streets are still unpaved and unsewered. A large for- 
eign-born population is living under these conditions. 
One of the good sanitary features of Providence is the 
excellent water supply piped to every house. 

(11) Columbus, 0. 

In 19 10, Otto W. Davis, secretary of the Associated 
Charities, conducted a housing investigation and re- 
ported dark rooms, no water, no toilets, 100 per cent, 
of the lot built on, and other familiar troubles. 

(12) Grand Rapids 

In 19 1 3, Udetta D. Brown made a housing study in 
Grand Rapids and found one- family houses still the pre- 
dominent type. But very objectionable tenements with 
dark interior rooms were beginning to be built over 



58 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

stores. More than half of the houses studied had yard 
toilets or privies. 

(13) Texas 

A series of articles on housing conditions in Texas 
(1911) has been reprinted in pamphlet form from the 
Galveston-Dallas News. The general impression pro- 
duced by this pamphlet is of the Mexican and negro pop- 
ulation crowded into dilapidated shacks without water or 
sewer connections, or even decent yard space, and of 
rents which bring an unreasonably large return on the 
small capital invested. 

(14) Minneapolis 

Minneapolis thought it had no slums till the housing 
committee of its Civic and Commerce Association pub- 
lished in September, 1914, the results of a "preliminary 
investigation," which showed it had over a thousand 
dark rooms, a number of basement and some cellar 
dwellings, 17,000 vaults and cesspools, inadequate water 
supply in certain districts, and dangerous tendencies 
to lot and room overcrowding. 

(15) Newhurgh, N. Y. 

Small towns have housing problems as well as large 
cities. Newburgh supposed it had none till a survey 
made in 19 13 showed that of the families studied 95 per 
cent, had no bath-tubs and 69 per cent, had to share 
toilets with other families. 

Why multiply instances? The supply of information 
is by no means exhausted, but the story is monotonous 
and depressing. There is no chance for stone-throw- 
ing. No community is without sin. 

Nothing definite as to numbers can be stated, but we shall 



Housing Conditions in the United States 59 

be within the truth if we say that one-third of our peo- 
ple are living under subnormal housing conditions, con- 
ditions which tend to lower rather than raise the phy- 
sical, mental and moral stamina of all the persons, but 
especially of the children, who are subject to them. 
And about 10 per cent, are living under conditions so 
bad that the toleration of them by the community would 
justify an indictment for manslaughter. Jacob Riis 
once wrote (Charities, Feb. 6, 1904) : " The Declara- 
tion speaks of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
It does not say a word about the right of anybody to kill 
his neighbor with a bad house any more than he has 
a right to kill him in the street with an ax." 



CHAPTER III 

RESTRICTIVE HOUSING LEGISLATION IN 

THE UNITED STATES 

I. RESTRICTIVE AXD CONSTRUCTIVE LEGISLATION 

The knowledge of an evil arouses the desire to right 
it. There are, broadly speaking, two ways, and only 
two ways, of correcting bad housing conditions, and thev 
are not alternate, but complementary. Neither can get 
very far alone. Bad housing conditions must be abol- 
ished and good housing conditions must be created. In 
the United States we have called legislation to our aid 
to accomplish the first and have trusted to private in- 
itiative for the second. In nearly every country of Eu- 
rope, in the more progressive states of South America, 
and in the great self-governing British colonies, it has 
been felt necessary to have the help of legislation for 
both. 

The two types of legislation, which we have called re- 
strictive and constructive, have already been defined as 
follows (pp. 19, 20) : 

Restrictive housing legislation aims to prevent the 
erection or maintenance of bad houses through the es- 
tablishment and enforcement of minimum standards of 
light, ventilation, sanitation and safety. 

Constructive housing legislation creates the mechan- 
ism through which the community itself undertakes to 
provide suitable houses at cost for such of its citizens 
as need them. The community may act either directly or 

60 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 6i 

indirectly. Municipal housing is direct. The loan of 
money to a housing company is indirect. Both are con- 
structive. 

Many foreign housing acts combine both types. The 
Dutch housing law of 1901 is a case in point. (U. S. 
Bureau Labor Statistics Bulletin 158, p. 382.) It deals 
with municipal housing and public loans for housing on 
the one hand, and with housing inspection, sanitary re- 
quirements and slum clearance schemes on the other. It 
is a conscious and well-thought-out attempt to include a 
complete housing program in one legislative act. 

The British Housing of the Working Classes Act of 
1890 and Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909 con- 
tain a mixture of the two elements. But they do not 
include all legislative enactments on the subject. Many 
restrictive housing provisions are in the Public Health 
Acts, and the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act covers 
one phase of constructive activity which the Housing of 
the Working Classes Act does not touch. 

In the United States, if we except the interesting ex- 
periment embodied in the Massachusetts Homestead 
Commission, a housing loan statute in Oklahoma and the 
very recent war housing activities of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, we have confined ourselves to restrictive legis- 
lation. For this policy, the report of the New York 
Tenement House Commission of 1900, the success of the 
New York tenement house law, and the activity of Law- 
rence Veiller and his associates of the National Hous- 
ing Association are largely responsible. That the 
New York tenement house law has been productive 
of great good, or that Mr. Veiller's experience and 
services entitle all that he says on the subject to care- 
ful consideration, no sensible person would deny. It 
may, however, be questioned whether in a matter vitally 



62 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

affecting the welfare of something like thirty millions 
of our people, the opinion of any one man, however 
eminent, ought to be accepted as final, especially when 
the weight of foreign authority is decidedly on the other 
side. Probably Mr. Veiller himself has modified his 
views since the report of the Tenement House Commis- 
sion of 1900 was written and since he gave the insanitary 
condition of certain tenements acquired by the city in 
condemnation proceedings and not yet torn down, as a 
sample of what American municipal tenements would be 
like if we had them;^ for in the opening chapter of 
"A Model Housing Law," published in 1914, we find 
the following paragraphs : 

" The question which every housing reformer must 
face is : What method will give the largest results with 
the least expenditure of energy and effort? It is largely 
a question of emphasis. The method which will return 
90 per cent, of results and not 10 per cent., is obviously 
the method to follow. No one thing will in itself solve 
the housing problem in any community. Housing evils 
are of so manifold a nature and have so many manifesta- 
tions that it is, of course, apparent that many things must 
be done before right conditions can be achieved. There 
is no method of housing reform which the housing re- 
former should not adopt provided it will produce results. 
It must always be submitted to this practical test. In 
some cases all methods are to be employed, not merely 
one. 

'* That legislation alone will solve the housing problem 
is, of course, absurd. But the point that we wish to lay 
emphasis upon is that in most cases the largest results 
have come from legislative action and that until certain 

1 First Report New York Tenement House Department, pp. 41-46. 



Restrictive Hoiking Legislation 63 

fundamental evils have been remedied it is futile, or 
worse, to adopt the methods of housing reform which 
may be said to belong to the post-graduate period rather 
than to the kindergarten stage of community develop- 
ment. In other words, we must get rid of our slums 
before we establish garden cities; we must stop people 
living in cellars before we concern ourselves with meth- 
ods of taxation; we must make it impossible for build- 
ers to build dark rooms in new houses before we urge 
the Government to subsidize building; we must abolish 
privy vaults before we build model tenements. When 
these things have been done there is no question that, 
effort can be profitably expended in the other directions 
mentioned." 

There can be little dissent from this philosophy — 
at least in its main lines. The kindergarten-post-grad- 
uate metaphor must not be pressed too far, since Mr. 
Veiller suggests no process of housing reform corre- 
sponding to the rather extensive intermediate stages. 
Kindergarten and primary or undergraduate and post- 
graduate might present a more accurate analogy, but 
would be less picturesque. 

The writer agrees with this distinguished authority 
as to the logical priority of restrictive legislation. The 
writer is, moreover, convinced of the practical wisdom 
of the decision of the New York Tenement House Com- 
mission of 1900 to eschew municipal housing at that 
time and devote its energies to restrictive legislation, 
though some of the reasoning by which it arrived at this 
decision could well be challenged. At that time in New 
York City a law to stop the building of dumb-bell tene- 
ments and to clean up the existing filth and mend the 
existing dilapidation was the method that would return 
90 per cent, of results. 



64 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

2. PROVISIONS OF THE VEILLER MODEL HOUSING 
LAW 

Instead of following the historic order, we are first go- 
ing to study the provisions of the Model Housing Law 
in Mr. Veiller's book (1914) and afterwards consider 
how near existing laws come to its standards. 

The model law is a state law. Since we cannot have 
a national restrictive law, the state is clearly the best 
unit. A local enactment is often necessary w^hen a state 
law has not yet been secured, or to raise the standard im- 
posed by the state law, but it should never be regarded 
as a substitute. 

The model law is mandatory. There is no reason for 
making the adoption of a housing law a matter of local 
option, as is the case in Massachusetts. You might as 
well have communities voting on whether they will pro- 
hibit burglary. The people of ^Massachusetts are not 
satisfied with the situation. Efforts have been made to 
secure a state-wnde law. So far, however, the home rule 
sentiment of the state has proved stronger than the desire 
for uniform housing legislation. 

The model law is a housing law, not a tenement house 
law. Clearly, people who live in one- and two-family 
houses have as much right to live under sanitary con- 
ditions as those who live in multiple dwellings,^ and any 
idea that they need no protection is fallacious. Are 
dark rooms or lack of water supply any less of a menace 
because the number of families under a roof is only one 
or two? Of course the more shocking conditions that 

1 A multiple dwelling, as defined by the model law, is " a dwelling 
occupied otherwise than as a private dwelling or two-family dwell- 
ing." It includes Class A, or tenement houses, and Class B, or 
hotels, lodging houses and institutions. 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 65 

stirred public opinion to action were in tenement houses. 
So quite naturally reform began with them. But that 
is no reason why we should be content to stop there. 

The provisions of the model law fall under three 
main heads : Structural requirements for dwellings here- 
after erected, structural improvements for dwellings al- 
ready erected, and maintenance requirements. 

Alteration requirements may be regarded as a sub- 
head, for they form a sort of compromise or connect- 
ing Hnk between the old-building and new-building stand- 
ards. The central thought is that every change made 
must be in the direction of the requirements for new 
buildings. 

As was pointed out in the last chapter, a much higher 
standard can be imposed on new buildings than on old 
ones. The opposition to a plan which limits the profits 
of possible future enterprises is naturally less keen than 
to one which forces owners of existing buildings to put 
their hands in their pockets and incur definite expenses. 
The standards for new buildings are, however, auto- 
matically limited by the point at which builders would 
cease to find it profitable to rent dwellings at a figure 
which lower-paid workers could afford. Housing re- 
form must not be allowed to create house famines. This 
argument is naturally much used by those with interested 
motives, but it is powerful because of the amount of 
truth it contains. 

As a matter of fact, standards have sometimes been 
raised above this point, the supply of existing houses be- 
ing counted on to take care of the unskilled wage earner. 
Perhaps it is believed that as the old houses disappear, 
wages will be automatically forced up to meet the situa- 
tion. Perhaps that will be the result, though the danger 
of increased sub-letting and overcrowding is very real. 



66 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

It is certain that the standards have never been too high 
from the point of view of public health and morals. 

In the model law, many standards are not fixed ab- 
solutely, but are supplied with a sliding scale, ** a flight of 
steps both up and down," as Mr. Veiller puts it, so 
that in propitious cases, communities may impose a 
higher standard, and where opposition threatens defeat, 
concessions may be made. 

( I ) Requirements for New Dwellings 

are classified under the heads of light and ventilation, 
sanitation and fire protection. 

A. Light and Ventilation 

This includes the area of a lot which may be built on. 
It varies from 90 per cent, of a comer lot with streets 
on three sides to 40 per cent, of an interior lot more than 
205 feet deep. The standard is higher than that im- 
posed by the New York tenement house law, as it cer- 
tainly should be. There is no other city in the country 
which ought not to be able to impose higher standards 
on itself than New York, for no other has such prob- 
lems of population and land value, aggravated by diffi- 
cult topography. The height of a dwelling is limited 
to the width of the widest street on which it abuts, but 
may not in any case exceed 100 feet. This is another 
very proper increase on the New York standard of one 
and a half times the width of the widest street. 

There must be a rear yard extending across the width 
of the lot. Its depth shall not be less than 25 per cent, 
of the depth of the lot or in any case less than fifteen feet. 
It increases with the height of the building. 

Side yards are not required (i. e., houses may be built 
in rows), but where they exist, must be at least 4 feet 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 67 

wide for a one-story dwelling and so on to 9 feet for a 
five-story dwelling, with 2 feet more for each additional 
story. 

Courts shall have a minimum width of 6 feet for a 
one-story dwelling and so on to 11 feet for a five-story 
dwelling with 2 feet more for each additional story. 
The length of an inner court must not be less than twice 
the minimum width prescribed. The length of any court 
shall not exceed four times its width. 

It will be noted that the distinction existing in the 
New York law and others between inner and outer courts 
has practically disappeared. This change was made in 
the interest of brevity and simplicity. All courts must 
be open at the top, and a current of air is secured by 
horizontal intakes at the bottom. 

In regard to buildings on the same lot with a dwelHng, 
the provisions aim to secure sufficient light and air and yet 
make possible the erection of a private garage or stable in 
the rear of an owner's house. Unfortunately the erec- 
tion of a dwelling under certain space and light condi- 
tions is permitted also. Mr. Veiller says : " When lots 
are deep and a system of alleys prevails the owner must 
necessarily have more than one building on his lot if he is 
to utilize his land to its full commercial development." 
The writer has lived too long in Washington to feel com- 
placent toward a provision which authorizes alley dwel- 
lings. The proper remedy for the condition Mr. Veiller 
describes is the re-plotting of the blocks affected by divid- 
ing the excessively deep lots in two and having the rear 
one face on a minor street, properly paved and lighted, 
which takes the place of the alley. The New York 
law forbids rear tenements to be built on lots fifty feet 
wide or less. So that in this respect, the model law repre- 
sents a lower standard. 



68 Hoiking of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Every room in a dwelling hereafter built, including 
bathrooms and toilet compartments, must have a window 
to the outer air. A suggested variation is that every 
apartment hereafter erected shall contain at least one 
room opening on the street or rear yard. This stand- 
ard ought to be obtainable in the newer states at least. ^ 
An apartment whose only outlet is on a court can hardly 
be considered a real home. 

The window area in each room shall be at least one- 
seventh of the floor area. It is one-tenth in the New 
York law. 

The minimum size of any room (excluding water 
closet compartment and bathroom) shall be 90 square 
feet, and every apartment shall have at least one room 
with at least 150 square feet floor space. The minima 
of the New York law^ are 70 square feet and 120 square 
feet respectively. The minimum height of rooms is 
placed at 9 feet. This is the same as in New York. 

The provision that alcoves must fulfill all the require- 
ments of separate rooms as to floor space and windows 
may seem harsh to those unfamiliar with the subterfuges 
actually practiced by New York and Brooklyn builders. 
But Mr. Veiller knows w^hereof he speaks. 

The privacy clause sets up the same standards as the 
New" York law and reads : "In every dwelling here- 
after erected access to every living-room and to every 
bedroom and to at least one water-closet compartment 
shall be had without passing through a bedroom." This 
is a safeguard of far-reaching sociological importance. 
This sub-division closes with provisions for light and air 
in public halls. 

^ It is found in the Minneapolis law of 1917. 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 69 

B. Sanitation 

Cellar rooms shall not be occupied as dwellings. A 
cellar is a story more than half underground. Basement 
rooms shall only be permitted under certain conditions 
of light, air and dryness. A basement is a story partly, 
but not more than one-half under ground. It is the 
writer's belief that neither cellar nor basement dwellings 
should be permitted. There seems to be a prevalent, but 
hardly defensible impression that a janitor and his fam- 
ily are sub-human. 

There are provisions for the waterproofing of cellars 
and the drainage of yards and courts. 

There is a very important section providing that wher- 
ever a communal water system exists, every house and 
every apartment within a house shall be supplied with 
running water. 

Another very important section provides for a water- 
closet within every house or apartment hereafter erected. 
When no public sewers exist, there must be suitable cess- 
pool connection. This applies only to one- and two- 
family houses, for another section forbids the erection of 
a multiple dwelling unless it has access to city water and 
sewers. This is important and perfectly just, for where 
community development has not reached the water and 
sewer stage, there can be no excuse for a multiple dwel- 
ling. 

The plumbing provisions are rather general, so as not 
to interfere with local plumbing codes, but it is provided 
that all plumbing shall be open, all fixtures trapped, and 
neither pan, plunger nor hopper closets permitted. 

C. Fire Protection 

Fireproof construction is required for buildings over 
three stories in height. This is a substantial advance 



70 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

over the New York standard which permits non-fire- 
proof tenements of six stories. The three-story stand- 
ard has been applied for some years in Chicago ^ and 
Louisville, a fact which should prove its practicability 
for other cities. 

Wooden tenements are prohibited. The excellent pro- 
visions in regard to fire escapes, stairs, roof egress, ele- 
vator and dumb-waiter shafts need not, perhaps, be re- 
peated. The prohibition of indoor cellar stairs and door 
in a multiple dwelling may seem to those unfamiliar with 
the history of tenement fires in New York an unnecessary 
inconvenience, but years of observation have proved that 
so large a proportion of tenement fires originate in the 
cellar or basement and reach the upper part of the house 
through an open door acting as a flue, that the precau- 
tion is fully justified. 

(2) Requirements for Existing Dwellings 

So much for the dwellings of the future. Require- 
ments for dwellings already erected are necessarily a 
compromise between the desirable and the attainable. It 
might seem axiomatic that what is essential to health 
should not be subject to compromise, but in a democ- 
racy, until public opinion is better educated, we must 
take what we can get. The very first provision in this 
article is a case in point. '' No room in a dwelling 
erected prior to the passage of this act shall hereafter be 
occupied for living purposes unless it shall have a win- 
dow of not less than eight square feet opening directly 
upon the street, or upon a rear yard not less than 10 feet 

1 In Chicago four- and five-story houses may be built of an inter- 
mediate grade of construction called slow-burning. The restriction 
has proved sufficient, however, to make the three-story type the 
prevalent one for low-cost apartments. 



Restrictive Hotising Legislation yi 

deep, or above the roof of an adjoining building, or upon 
a court or side yard of not less than 25 square feet in 
area, open to the sky without roof or skylight, unless such 
room is located on the top floor and is adequately lighted 
and ventilated by a skylight opening directly to the 
outer air, except that a room which does not comply 
with the above provisions may be occupied if provided 
with a sash window of not less than 15 square feet in 
area opening into an adjoining room in the same apart- 
ment, group or suite of rooms, which latter room either 
opens directly on the street or on a rear yard of the 
above dimensions, or itself connects by a similar sash 
window or series of windows with such an outer room." 

Eight square feet of window space is bad enough, 
for surely a window 2 feet by 4 feet opening on a court 
can neither light nor ventilate a room; but the excep- 
tion which permits windows into a series of adjoining 
rooms is worse. It does not seem as if any self-respect- 
ing community could sanction such a provision. Yet 
it is a fact that it was only after a hard fight that this 
cutting of windows into adjoining rooms was enforced 
in New York. The writer is inclined to believe that if 
this is the best that can be secured, the dark rooms 
might as well be left as they are, and energy concen- 
trated on the education and civilization of the community. 
People's attention can be aroused by totally dark rooms, 
but this alleged " letting in the light " (see evefn a serious 
and well-informed journal like the Survey) lulls the com- 
munity into a false sense of security. 

The Philadelphia law of 19 15 forbids the occupancy of 
any room for living purposes unless it has a window 
opening to the outer air. 

It is provided that wherever connection with a sewer 
is possible, all privy vaults and school sinks shall be 



72 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

abolished by a certain date and replaced by indoor water- 
closets, at least one for each two families. This is a 
very important provision. 

The skylight, public halls, sinks, concreting of cellar, 
and fire escape provisions present no point that need de- 
tain us. It might seem as if the provision requiring the 
installation of water belonged here, but it is actually 
found under maintenance. 

(3) Maintenance 

Under this head come all the housekeeping provisions. 
Public halls are to be lighted by day and by night. Cel- 
lars are to be kept whitewashed. 

" Every dwelling and all the parts thereof shall be kept 
in good repair, and the roof shall be kept so as not to 
leak, and all rain water shall be so drained and conveyed 
therefrom as not to cause dampness in the walls or 
ceilings." 

" Every dwelling shall have within the dwelling at 
least one proper sink with running water furnished in 
sufficient quantity at one or more places exclusive of the 
cellar. In two-family dwellings and multiple dwellings 
of Class A (i. e., tenements) there shall be at least one 
such sink on every floor, accessible to each family on the 
floor occupied by each family without passing through 
any other apartment." 

The writer believes that this standard, which permits 
hall sinks, is too low, and that running water in each 
apartment should be required. 

When there is no city water supply, closed wells or 
cisterns with pumps must be provided. 

" Every dwelling and every part thereof shall be kept 
clean." 

Walls of courts in multiple dwellings, unless of light 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 73 

brick or stone, shall be kept whitewashed or painted a 
light color. This has a marked effect on the lighting of 
adjacent rooms. Rooms not opening directly on the 
street may also be ordered painted or kalsomined white 
for the same reason. No wall paper shall be put on with- 
out thoroughly removing the old paper. This limits the 
passing along of germs and vermin. Tight metal cans 
with lids are to be provided for ashes, garbage and rub- 
bish. 

Prohibited uses include the keeping of horses, cows, 
swine, or poultry within the dwelling, as well as the 
storage or handling of rags or junk. Prostitution and 
assignation are prohibited uses in the New York tene- 
ment house law but not in the model law, and the 
reason given for their omission is not very convincing. 

The model law requires a resident janitor or house- 
keeper or the residence of the owner in all multiple dwel- 
lings at the discretion of the enforcing officer. In the 
New York law this is required only when there are more 
than eight families. 

In respect to air space, the model law requires 600 
cubic feet for an adult and 400 for a child under twelve. 
In the New York law the standard is only 400 cubic 
feet for an adult and 200 for a child. 

The letting of lodgings requires a permit. This is 
a new provision (not in the New York law) and an 
excellent one. 

Infected or uninhabitable dwellings may be ordered 
vacated. 

Fire escapes must be kept painted and unincumbered. 

(4) Requirements and Remedies 

The last part of the model housing law deals with 
the "teeth" which make it enforceable. Before the 



74 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

construction or alteration of a building, plans must be 
submitted and approved and a building permit issued. 
A certificate of compliance with the law must be granted 
before the house is occupied. A house occupied with- 
out certificate may be vacated by the authorities, and 
the tenant is under no obligation to pay rent. The viola- 
tion of any provision of the law is a misdemeanor pun- 
ishable by ten days' imprisonment for each day of viola- 
tion, or a fine of from $io to $250 or both, with $10 
for each additional day, or the offender may be prose- 
cuted in a civil court and fined from $50 to $250, and 
such fine, if unpaid, becomes a lien on the property. 
The vacation of infected or uninhabitable houses has 
already been spoken of. Or the authorities may abate the 
nuisance and make the repairs themselves, charging the 
costs to the property. 

The model law contains a paragraph on the tenant's 
responsibility, which is not in the New York law. Fail- 
ure on his part to comply with any provision of the law, 
after due notice, subjects him to summary eviction. 

The model law, like the New York law, provides for 
a registry of the name and address of the owrier or 
agent. This has not worked very satisfactorily in New 
York, as many owners have been careless about this pro- 
vision, and magistrates have been unwilling to impose 
fines for non-compliance. The writer oelieves that a 
modification of the license system as used in Cleveland 
and Philadelphia would be preferable, at least for tene- 
ments. It makes the registry of the owner's name and 
address automatically certain, since a tenement cannot 
be kept open without a license. It furnishes the best 
known aid to law enforcement, for the knowledge that 
the housing authorities, without the intervention of any 
court, may decline to renew a license would be a stronger 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 75 

spur than any other remedy for the persistently dilatory 
landlord. While this has not been the practice in Phil- 
adelphia and Cleveland, the licensing system could read- 
ily be made to pay the cost of administering the housing 
law. Mr. Veiller calculates the cost of the New York 
Tenement House Department at seventy-five cents per 
family per year. Even at $1.00 per year per apartment, 
the burden on the trade would not be excessive. 

Periodic inspection of multiple dwellings at least once 
a year is provided for. The right of entry is, of course, 
stipulated. 

The model housing law offers no administrative ma- 
chinery for its enforcement. It is assumed that it will be 
in the hands of the health department or other existing 
agency. The New York tenement house law is similar. 
The Tenement House Department was created by an 
amendment of the city charter. 

3. TENEMENT HOUSE LAWS AND ADMINISTRATION 
IN NEW YORK 

It will have been noted that no very radical change is 
made from the New York law in the model law. There 
is considerable change and a decided improvement in the 
arrangement of subjects. Otherwise, the changes are 
such as are made necessary by broadening the applica- 
tion from tenement houses to all dwellings, or they rep- 
resent the somewhat higher standards it is only reason- 
able to adopt. There is no excuse for any other city 
in the country, let alone any other state, being content 
with New York standards. 

Yet how many cities are actually worse off to-day than 
New York because they have not so good a law, or be- 
cause it is not so well enforced! For New York, in 
these days, thanks to fifteen years of efficient tenement 



y6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

house administration, is swept and garnished and re- 
paired. It still has dark rooms, for windows in parti- 
tions have no magic to lighten them. It has too small 
rooms and too crowded rooms. It has basement dwel- 
lings and yard toilets. It has over a million people with- 
out bath-tubs (Veiller, "Housing Reform," p. lo). 
Naturally, all tenements are not immaculate. But there 
are no accumulations of filth, there is no dilapidation or 
extreme disrepair. There are no privy vaults. Very 
few of the old hall sinks remain. There is running 
water in almost every apartment. It is true that the 
unskilled wage earning population cannot afford to live 
in new-law tenements (except some of the jerry-built 
ones in Brooklyn), but they have profited indirectly by 
the existence of the new tenements in their neighborhood. 
The action of the landlords in voluntarily putting run- 
ning water in so many apartments, and in moving so 
many yard toilets into the house bears witness to this. 
Without these conveniences, landlords found their tene- 
ments difficult to rent. The women of the Lower East 
Side are at present conducting an informal campaign for 
porcelain-lined sinks in place of the old painted iron 
ones, and signs are not wanting that the landlords are 
beginning to capitulate on this point also. 

The legislative genealogy of the present New York 
tenement house law has already been traced briefly in 
connection with housing conditions. 

( I ) The Tenement House Act of i86y resulted imme- 
diately from the report and recommendations of the 
Council of Hygiene and Public Health appointed by a 
private voluntary organization, the Citizen's Associa- 
tion of New York. More remotely, it was also a result of 
the report and recommendations of the Legislative Com- 
mittee of 1857. Besides the requirements already quoted 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 'jy 

that cellars could not be used as dwellings unless their 
ceilings were at least one foot above ground, this act 
contained many important provisions, as city water in 
every house or yard, a water-closet or privy for every 
twenty persons, and general but far-reaching require- 
ments as to cleanliness and repairs. The collection of 
garbage and other refuse was undertaken for the first 
time, and the violation of the law was made a mis- 
demeanor. 

(2) The Tenement fiouse Act of 18 /p is said to have 
resulted from the popular interest created by the pioneer 
model tenements build by Alfred T. White in Brooklyn. 
Besides the epoch-making requirement of windows to 
the outer air quoted in the last chapter, this act estab- 
lished the standard of 600 cubic feet of air space per 
adult which was afterwards cut down to 400. Here also 
we first meet the clause which requires a resident janitor 
or housekeeper in houses where there are more than eight 
families. 

(3) The Tenement House Act of i88y resulted from 
the report and recommendations of the commission ap- 
pointed by the Governor in 1884. 

(4) The Tenement House Act of i8pj proceeded from 
the report and recommendations of a similar body in 
1894. The provisions of these acts have already, per- 
haps, been sufficiently discussed. (Chap. II, pp. 38- 
42.) 

(5) The Tenement House Act of ipoi with which we 
have acquired some familiarity by comparing its pro- 
visions with those of the model law, was, as already 
stated, the fruit of the labors of the Tenement House 
Commission of 1900. This commission, appointed by 
Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, was 
the result of the activities of the Tenement House Com- 



78 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

mittee of the New York Charity Organization Society. 
Robert W. de Forest was president of the Charity Organ- 
ization Society and Lawrence Veiller was secretary of 
the Tenement House Committee, whose creation a short 
time before (1898) was due to his initiative. Most 
fittingly Mr. de Forest was made chairman and Mr. 
Veiller secretary of the Commission of 1900, which 
drafted the present law. And most fittingly again, they 
were charged with its administration as Commissioner 
and Deputy Commissioner, during the first two critical 
years of organizing the new Tenement House Depart- 
ment. To their high ideals, combined with executive 
ability and practical sagacity, are due the subsequent 
success of the Tenement House Department. Organ- 
ization, procedure, inspection cards and service traditions 
have changed surprisingly little to the present day. 

This is the more remarkable as the department was 
all but wrecked in the year and a half immediately suc- 
ceeding the retirement of Commissioner de Forest and 
Deputy Commissioner Veiller. A Tammany orator of 
genial personality and much sentimental enthusiasm over 
the woes of " the poor " w^as made Tenement House Com- 
missioner. His first act was to get rid of all of the per- 
sonnel carefully gathered and trained by his predecessors, 
except such as wxre protected by the civil service law. 
Their successors were appointed for purely political rea- 
sons. The law ceased to be enforced so far as any owner 
with a political pull was concerned. The vacation of 
houses unfit for habitation came to an end. Builders 
were allowed to erect houses in entire disregard of the 
provisions of the law. In Brooklyn especially, this be- 
came a public scandal. Honest ofificials were not sup- 
ported in their efforts to do their duty. Public money 
was brazenly wasted in such things as a census of fire 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 79 

escapes, for which purpose a large force of temporary 
employees was taken on, so many from each ward, 
selected by the ward boss, with no reference to any 
qualifications except political ones. These men were 
each given a district in which to report on the adequacy 
of fire escapes, and their method consisted in walking 
along a block and jotting down whether there was or 
was not a fire escape on the front of each house. 

In short the department was demoralized and so com- 
pletely discredited that a movement to repeal the law 
would soon have taken on the aspect of reform. 

Fortunately, a sufficiently alert public opinion was de- 
veloped to arouse Mayor McClellan into asking for the 
resignation of the Commissioner. His successor, Com- 
missioner Butler, was a man of high character who had 
long been prominently identified with social work in the 
St. Vincent de Paul Society. 

The four and a half years of Commissioner Butler's 
administration restored the good name of the Tenement 
House Department, though of course he had to face a 
much more bitter and determined opposition on the part 
of owners and builders, because of the regime of lax- 
ness which had preceded him. Legal fights marked his 
administration, the most important of which, perhaps, 
was the Moeschen case, involving a decision by the Su- 
preme Court of the United States of far-reaching im- 
portance in the history of restrictive housing legislation. 
Katie Moeschen had been ordered to remove the school 
sinks in the yard of a tenement owned by her at 332 
East 39th Street and substitute water-closets as re- 
quired by the law of 1901. This was in 1903. The 
Municipal Court first decided against her, and the fight 
was carried successively to the Supreme Court of New 
York, the Court of Appeals of New York and the Su- 



8o Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

preme Court of the United States, which rendered its 
verdict in 1906. All the decisions were unanimous. 

Commissioner Murphy, who succeeded Commissioner 
Butler in 19 10 and remained in office till 19 18, en- 
deavored, with considerable success, to bring about a 
better understanding between the department and the 
owners and builders. But the millennium has by no 
means arrived, and a constant watch has to be kept lest 
weakening amendments to the law or frank repeals of 
certain provisions slip through the legislature. Not a 
session passes that representatives of the Tenement House 
Committee of the Charity Organization Society do not 
have to visit Albany to protect the law which they brought 
into being and have labored so long to keep efficient. 

This brief administrative history should be kept in 
mind by every community interested in housing reform. 
Do not think your work is done and disband your 
citizens' organizations when you have secured a good 
housing law. Set sentinels on the watch towers, and be 
sure they do not go to sleep while on guard. 

4. STATES WITH TENEMENT HOUSE OR HOUSING 
LAWS 

The following list is based on one prepared by the 
National Housing Association for the Russell Sage 
Foundation in 19 16. It is in chronological order and has 
been brought up to date. 

A Tenement house law for ist 
class cities (Philadelphia) 1895 
(Housing law for ist class 

, ^ ^ , . cities 191 3. Repealed.) Hous- 

(i) Pennsylvania i . ^ r ^1 •^- ,^^^ 
^ - ^ mg law for ist class cities 191 5 

B Tenement house law^ for 2nd 

class cities (Pittsburgh and 

Scranton) 1903 



Restrictive Hotting Legislation 



8i 



(2) New York 

(3) New Jersey 

(4) Connecticut 

(5) Wisconsin 



(6) Indiana 

(7) California 

(8) Kentucky 

(9) Massachusetts 



^A 



B 



B 



{ 



A 



B 



Tenement house law for ist 
class cities (New York and 
Buffalo) 1 90 1 

Housing law for 2nd class 
cities 191 3. Repealed 19 15 

Tenement house law for all 
cities and towns, 1904 

Tenement house law for all 
cities, boroughs and towns, 
1905, 191 1, 1913 

State-wide tenement house law, 
1907. Declared unconstitu- 
tional 1909 

Tenement house law for ist 
class cities (Milwaukee) 1909 

Tenement house law (nearly a 
housing law) 1909 (for cities 
over 59,000 population), 19 13 
(for all incorporated cities), 
1917 

Tenement house law for all 
cities, towns and counties, 
1909, 191 1, 1913, 1915 

Tenement house law for ist 
class cities (Louisville) 1910 

Tenement house law for towns 
(permissive) 1912. Has been 
adopted by 23 towns 
Tenement house law for cities 
(permissive) 19 13. Has been 
adopted by one city (Revere) 



82 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 
(lo) Michigan 



State-wide housing law for all 
cities and organized villages of 
10,000 inhabitants and over — 
1917 



(11) Minnesota 



Housing law for ist class cities 
not organized under Sec. 36 of 
Article 9 of the State Consti- 
tution (Minneapolis) 191 7 

There are certain arbitrary elements in this classifica- 
tion. Laws having the form of general acts are included, 
even though they may actually apply to one city only, 
while laws which refer to a city by name and are, there- 
fore, special local acts, are excluded. This applies to 
the tenement house laws of St. Louis and other cities and 
to all the New York and Brooklyn tenement house acts 
previous to 1901. 

(i) Pennsylvania 

Laws subsequent to the New York act of 1901 are all 
based on it and follow its provisions more or less closely. 
The only state law antedating it is the Pennsylvania sta- 
tute of 1895 for first class cities, which affected Phil- 
adelphia exclusively. Its standards were, for the epoch, 
surprisingly high, but it dealt too much in generalities 
to be readily enforceable. It occupied only three printed 
pages. As a matter of fact, it never was enforced. 
The Bureau of Buildings, which was charged with its 
administration, has never had a very enlightened interest 
in housing. Philadelphia has been, most of the time, a 
particularly boss-ridden and badly governed city. In 

1 Bills for state-wide housing laws are before the legislatures of 
1919 in Iowa, Illinois and Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts leg- 
islature is considering a special housing code for Boston. 



Restrictive Hovising Legislation 83 

19 1 3 the Philadelphia Housing Commission got a hous- 
ing law enacted of very excellent standards. But the 
City Councils nullified it by the simple device of refusing 
to appropriate any money for the new Division of Hous- 
ing and Sanitation which was to administer it. After 
a long fight between the reformers and the city fathers, 
the latter managed to railroad through the legislature a 
repeal of the 19 13 law and the substitution of an ut- 
terly valueless one. Governor Brumbaugh vetoed it and 
appointed the State Health Commissioner and State At- 
torney General to draw up a bill after consultation with 
both sides. This measure was enacted in 191 5. It pre- 
served many of the good features of the 19 13 act, but 
compromised on several issues. 

(2) New York 

The law for first class cities has been sufficiently dis- 
cussed. 

The law for second class cities was a housing law 
nearly identical with the Veiller model. It was enacted 
in 19 1 3 after energetic work by citizens' committees in 
Albany, Syracuse, Troy and elsewhere. This is a sad 
story of lack of post-enactment vigilance. The real 
estate interests affected first got the date at which the 
law would go into operation postponed for a year, and 
then in 19 15, secured an act of repeal. 

(3) New Jersey 

The New Jersey tenement house law (1904) adheres 
very closely to that of New York, though it is weaker 
in some spots. It is interesting as being the first state- 
wide law and the first to be administered by a central 
body. Its administration has been always of a high 
character and as efficient as the appropriations permit- 



84 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

ted. These have been considerably lower, proportion- 
ately, than in New York. 

The passage of the New Jersey law was largely due to 
the initiative of Captain Charles J. Allen, a newspaper 
writer at Trenton who seems to have combined in his 
person the roles of Jacob Riis and Lawrence Veiller. 
The law is administered by the State Board of Tene- 
ment House Supervision, whose five members are ap- 
pointed by the Governor for overlapping terms of five 
years. They elect their own chairman and secretary, 
the latter receiving a salary and acting as executive offi- 
cer. The other members serve without pay. Captain 
Allen was secretary of the board, until his death in June, 
19 16, when he was succeeded by Miles W. Beemer, who 
had been for some years a member of the board. 

(4) Connecticut 

The 1905 law applies to all cities, towns and boroughs, 
except that the provisions concerning water-closets apply 
only where sewer and water systems exist. The act ap- 
plies to new buildings only, and does not touch on main- 
tenance or buildings already in existence. It follows 
the New York law in a general way, but has been greatly 
shortened and simplified, probably at a sacrifice of some 
of its effectiveness. It is administered by local building 
bureaus. In 191 1, a supplementary act was passed deal- 
ing with minimum standards for old buildings and ques- 
tions of repairs and cleanliness. It is much more general 
in the authority it gives than the New York law, and 
this is not likely to be an advantage. In 19 13, the 1905 
act was amended, but the changes made were not radical. 

( 5 ) Wisconsin 
Wisconsin passed a state-wide tenement house, lodging 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 85 

and boarding house act in 1907, which was declared un- 
constitutional the following year on the ground that its 
provisions, or some of them, were unreasonable. It 
classed two-family houses as tenements and forbade out- 
look on inner or lot-line courts for any rooms except 
baths and toilets. Both of these standards were aban- 
doned in the 1909 act, which applies only to first class 
cities (Milwaukee). In several respects the require- 
ments of this second act are lower than those of the 
New York law. 

(6) Indimm 

The housing legislation of Indiana has a certain human 
interest quality because it is so truly the work of one 
woman — Albion Fellows Bacon. It furnishes an in- 
spiring story of what single-hearted devotion to an idea 
may accomphsh, and Mrs. Bacon has told it in a very 
delightful way in her book, " Beauty for Ashes.** She 
got her first law through the legislature in 1909, though 
in a mutilated form and after a bitter fight. It started 
state-wide and ended by applying to two cities only. 
But even so, it was a great achievement. Mrs. Bacon 
and her friends, however, did not rest on their laurels, 
and in 19 13, a really state- wide law was passed, applying 
to everything except one-family houses and including 
row^s of one-family houses which have yards, cellars, 
toilets or water supply in common. This provision was 
designed, of course, to cover the forlorn little one-family 
houses we all know, inhabited by negroes or non-English- 
speaking immigrants, where sometimes a whole row 
share the same privy and well or the same yard water- 
closet and hydrant. A 19 17 amendment still further 
strengthened the law. 

The Indiana law followed the New York law closely, 



86 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

raising the standards in several places and lowering them 
a bit once or twice by expressing an idea in general in- 
stead of precise terms. It antedated, of course, the 
Veiller model law. Its weakest point would seem to be 
the rather vague provision making the State Board of 
Health responsible for its enforcement. 

(7) California 

All four of the California state tenement house laws 
(1909, 191 1, 1913 and 1915) bear the name of Senator 
Burnett, and all except the first were prepared by or in 
cooperation with the San Francisco Housing Association. 
All are state-wide, applying to cities, towns and counties. 
The act of 1909 applied to new buildings only and ad- 
hered too closely to the New York standards. There 
could be no reason in a state-wide law, for instance, for 
permitting the erection of six-story non-fireproof tene- 
ments, or for accepting the standards set by New York 
real estate values in determining the percentage of a lot 
to be built on. 

The 191 1 law contained some strengthening and some 
w^eakening amendments and introduced certain rather 
flabby requirements for old buildings. The act of 19 13, 
among other things, strengthened the provisions concern- 
ing basement dwellings, which were not permitted unless 
the ceiling was 7 feet above the curb level. California 
stands alone in defining a basement as a story partly be- 
low, but at least two-thirds above ground.^ Another 
progressive innovation for which California deserves 
credit is the provision that every tenement house should 
have at least one bath-tub or shower on every floor. The 
act of 191 5 shows the advent of a new power, for it pro- 
vides that the State Commission of Immigration and 

1 Boston requires that it shall be 60 per cent, above ground, 



Restrictive Hoiising Legislation 87 

Housing shall enforce the provisions of this act not deal- 
ing with actual construction, in cases where a violation, 
reported by the Commission to the local Health Depart- 
ment, has not been remedied within thirty days. 

(8) Kentucky 

Kentucky is the only Southern state so far to have 
achieved a law concerned with housing. It is a tene- 
ment house law applying to first class cities only (Louis- 
ville) and was passed in 19 10. It is based on the New 
York law, but has a number of variations upward and 
downward. It requires tenements over three stories in 
height to be fireproof and forbids the erection of tene- 
ments except where sewers exist and are connected. 
On the other hand, a janitor is only required if there are 
ten or more apartments, and in existing houses only one 
water-closet need be provided for four families — a dis- 
tinctly low standard. The law must be rather difficult of 
enforcement, for violations are not proclaimed a misde- 
meanor, there is no prison sentence, and the possible 
fine — $10 to $25 — is sadly inadequate to act as a de- 
terrent. 

(9) Massachusetts 

The Tenement House Act of 191 2 for Towns and the 
Tenement House Act of 19 13 for Cities contain nearly 
identical provisions. They are based on the New York 
law, but rise above it in several noteworthy particulars. 
They include among tenements, as does the Indiana law, 
row houses with yards, toilets or other services in com- 
mon. They do not permit rooms in old buildings to be 
occupied for living purposes unless they have windows 
opening to the outer air. They require window space 
in new buildings to equal at least one-seventh of floor 



88 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

space. They forbid wooden tenements over two and a 
half stories high, or housing more than two famihes, 
and they limit tenements over four stories to fireproof 
structures. The town law very wisely forbids base- 
ment dwellings under any conditions, and limits the 
amount of a lot that may be built on to 65 per cent, for 
a corner lot and 50 per cent, for all others. 

The unsatisfactory feature of the Massachusetts acts 
is that they are not obligatory. Naturally those commu- 
nities most in need of housing regulation fail to adopt 
them. The town act has been accepted by twenty-three 
communities, but the city act by only one. Whether 
the local option principle is satisfactory or unsatisfactory 
when applied to the sale of liquor, it has not worked well 
in housing, and the people of Massachusetts are by no 
means satisfied with the situation. 

(10) Michigan 

The Michigan Housing Act of 19 17 is the most ad- 
vanced state-wide law yet passed. It applies to all cities 
and organized villages of 10,000 or more inhabitants. It 
embodies the provisions of the model law almost verba- 
tim. Its passage followed an agitation of several years 
and the report of a State commission. The Detroit 
Health Department had secured the adoption of an ordi- 
nance of similar scope applying only to Detroit in 19 16. 

(11) Minnesota 

This act applies only to Minneapolis. It goes even 
beyond the model law requirements in some respects in 
its provisions for securing an abundance of light and air 
in new buildings. It embodies a deliberate effort to pre- 
vent the future construction of dwellings in rows and to 
discourage the building of cheap tenements. This is 



Restrictive Housing Legislation 89 

particularly interesting because the bill was drawn by a 
joint committee representing the Civic and Commerce 
Association and the Real Estate Board. Evidently the 
business men of Minneapolis take a very practical inter- 
est in the grade of citizens their city is going to produce. 

5. CITY LEGISLATION 

Practically every city has provisions in its building code 
and its sanitary regulations which exert some influence 
or restraint on housing conditions. Most of them are 
entirely inadequate. A separate housing or tenement 
house code is necessary to give sufficient emphasis, and 
the code should be administered, in large cities at least, 
by a distinct housing bureau or division of the health 
department, where the creation of a separate housing 
department is not felt to be necessary. A separate hous- 
ing department will undoubtedly be the goal finally 
reached in first class cities. 

The National Housing Association has a list of forty- 
three cities which are supposed to have housing or tene- 
ment house codes. As a matter of fact only eighteen 
or twenty of them are properly entitled to the distinction. 
The others have housing provisions, apparently based on 
the New York law, inserted in their building codes or 
health ordinances. They are probably picked out because 
of the comparative fullness of the provisions. Yet it is 
true that cities have gone farther than states in applying 
the provisions of the Veiller model law. Columbus, 
Ohio (191 1 ), Duluth (1912, amended 1916), Grand 
Rapids (1914) and Berkeley, California (1915), are in- 
stances in point. The housing codes of these cities, 
especially the last two, are virtually transcripts of the 
model law. 

The Cleveland ordinance of 191 5 does not follow the 



90 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

model law so closely, but embodies good standards, es- 
pecially in the size of courts and yards. It is the first 
code in which the angle of sunlight, dependent on the 
cities' latitude, is taken into account. 

6. CONCLUSION 

From all of which it will appear that although a sub- 
stantial beginning has been made in restrictive housing 
legislation in the United States, very much more remains 
to be done. Whether all efforts should be concentrated 
on bringing the whole country up to the desired standard 
in this respect before we consider constructive housing 
legislation, or whether more rapid progress would be 
made from now on if constructive and restrictive legis- 
lation were simultaneously developed, is a question of 
fundamental policy to be determined on its merits after 
careful study. 

The Veiller model law and the administration of the 
New York Tenement House Department are the best con- 
tributions yet made in the United States to the housing 
experience of the world. But they address themselves to 
only one-half of the task. For methods of handling the 
other half, we must study the experience of Europe and 
Australasia. 



CHAPTER IV 

MODEL HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES 
UNDER PRIVATE INITIATIVE 

The constructive side of housing reform, the building 
of desirable houses for working people, which has been 
the object of much effective governmental action abroad, 
has been left to private initiative in the United States. 
It will hardly be claimed that strictly commercial private 
enterprise has satisfactorily supplied the housing needs 
of the unskilled wage earner at any time or at any place, 
iBut we have the various model housing developments. 

Model housing implies the setting of standards higher 
than those prevailing. It is a term of shifting signifi- 
cance. That which merely conforms to the law has no 
right to call itself model, even though the standard be 
high. Yet a precisely similar house in a community 
with more backward legislation may be truly model. Or 
the identical house may have been model when it was 
built if it antedated the housing law. 

This has been the actual experience. We should have 
no housing laws on our statute books if it were not for 
the demonstrations afforded by builders of model houses 
that dwellings of a certain definite standard could be 
produced at a given cost, rented for a given amount and 
yield a given income. And just as the successful ex- 
periments of such men as Alfred T. White of Brooklyn 
have made possible the tenement house laws of New 
York, so every unwisely planned enterprise that has been 
run at a loss, however praiseworthy the motive behind it, 

91 



92 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

has done actual harm to the cause of good housing by 
furnishing argumentative ammunition against the prac- 
ticabihty of proposed standards. 

Model housing enterprises may be classified objec- 
tively or subjectively, by the type of house built, or by 
the motive of the builder. We have a variety of build- 
ing types running from the model tenement in a city to 
the single- family detached house in a garden suburb. 
On the motive side we may run the gamut from unmixed 
philanthropy to nearly unmixed commercialism. This 
last limit can never be reached in model housing. Ob- 
viously, where the aim is wholly commercial, no more 
money will be spent on a house to be rented at a given 
sum than is necessary to comply with the law^ and secure 
a tenant. As coming up to existing standards will ac- 
complish this, there is everything to lose and nothing to 
gain by exceeding them. Which does not prevent an 
occasional wholly commercial enterprise from masque- 
rading under the name of " model." 

I. PHILANTHROPIC TRUST FUNDS 

We have little to represent pure philanthropy in the 
housing history of the United States. The only Ameri- 
can who ever made a large gift for the housing of work- 
ingmen was George Peabody, who made his gift to 
London. This was the famous Peabody Donation Fund 
established in 1862 and amounting at the time of Mr, 
Peabody's death to £500,000. It houses about 20,000 
people. Pure philanthropy in housing necessarily in- 
volves a trust fund. There are no stock-holders, no div- 
idends, however limited. Whatever of the rent remains 
after paying for up-keep goes back into the fund. The 
Guinness Trust is of this order, and the large Sutton 
Housing Trust (£2,000,000). Both are in London. 



Model Housing in the United States 93 

More representative of recent tendencies are the Bourn- 
ville Village Trust established by Mr. Cadbury in 1900, 
to which during the next ten years he made over prop- 
erty valued at £253,000, and the Joseph Rowntree Village 
Trust (Earswick Model Village) founded in 1904. 

On the continent, Margarethenhohe, a garden suburb 
of Essen, is the product of the Margarethe Krupp Fund. 

In view of the prevalent impression of princely vastness 
in connection with American benefactions, it is some- 
thing of a shock to find only two meager instances of 
housing trusts in the United States. One is the Charles- 
bank Homes of Boston, founded in 191 1 by Edwin Ginn, 
the publisher. Its visible embodiment is a five-story fire- 
proof building with 103 apartments, mostly of three 
rooms, with a few of two and four. " No profits or 
income derived in any way from the building will at any 
time be divided among the incorporators . . . but all 
such profits and net income will be applied to the pur- 
chase of land and the erection of other buildings to ex- 
tend the blessings and benefits of good homes to needy 
and deserving people." (Descriptive booklet.) 

The other instance is afforded by the Mullanphy 
Apartments erected in St. Louis by the Mullanphy Emi- 
grant and Travelers Relief Fund, of which the city is 
trustee. This building contains thirty-six two-, three- 
and four-room apartments with toilet, electric light, gas 
stoves and steam heat. There are baths and laundries in 
the basement. 

Clearly, pure philanthropy cannot be described as the 
American method of solving the housing problem. 

2. LIMITED DIVIDEND HOUSING COMPANIES 

The organizers and leading spirits of these enterprises 
are usually actuated by motives of philanthropy quite as 



94 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

*' pure " as those of the founders of trusts. But not 
disposing of large sums of capital, they have to attract 
stock-holders by the lure of *' philanthropy and five per 
cent." This phrase, intended to be seductive, has, one is 
inclined to think, done more harm than good to the 
movement by the excessive frankness with which it fea- 
tures the mixture of motives. It is, perhaps, a sound 
instinct that makes the average public-spirited American 
business man insist on keeping his business and his philan- 
thropy separate. In its extreme (and most unlovely) 
form, we have the captain of industry who works his 
men twelve hours a day seven days in the week in order 
to present the town with a million-dollar library. Rare 
is the man who argues : " I am in the habit of giving 
$i,ooo a year to relief societies. That represents 2 per 
cent, on fifty thousand dollars. I will therefore invest 
fifty thousand dollars in a 4 per cent, limited dividend 
housing company instead of in the 6 per cent, mortgages 
I now hold. My loss of a thousand dollars in interest 
would prevent more misery than my gift of a thousand 
would relieve." 

Fortunately for advance in housing, there have been 
and still are a few such men. 

(i) Model Tenements 

Here again England leads the way. The ^^letropoli- 
tan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the In- 
dustrial Classes was incorporated in 1845 ^^^ ^s still a 
live organization, landlord to about 5,000 people. 

A. Workmen's Home Association, 1854 

The New York Association for Improving the Con- 
dition of the Poor in 1854 launched the Workmen's 
Home Association, which had a less successful history. 



Model Hoiising in the United States 95 

In 1855 it erected the " Workmen's Home " for colored 
tenants on a six-lot tract running from Mott to Elizabeth 
Street. It was a six-story barracks building, 53 feet by 
188, with a 22-foot court adjoining the longv side, and 
contained 87 three-room apartments for nearly 400 per- 
sons. It was built at a cost of $90,000 and paid 6 per 
cent. net. Rents were from $5.50 to $8.50. Fireproof 
stairs, gas-lighted halls and a water-closet and city water 
for each family were a sufficient advance on existing 
standards to justify some, at least, of the enthusiasm in 
the A. I. C. P. reports, but the dark, interior bedrooms 
show how low those standards were, and the tiny flues 
(" the size of a brick," Mr. Veiller says) running from 
each room to the roof represent a very feeble attempt at 
ventilation. 

B. Boston Cooperative Building Company, 1871. 

The Boston Cooperative Building Company was incor- 
porated in 1 87 1, through the efforts of Dr. H. P. Bow- 
ditch. Its dividends were limited to 7 per cent, which 
was not considered high at that time. As a matter of 
fact at the period of Gould's report ("The Housing of 
the Working People," E. R. L. Gould, Eighth Special Re- 
port of the Commissioner of Labor, 1895) it had never 
exceeded 6 per cent. It opened its first tenements on East 
Canton Street in 1872, and eventually developed five 
" estates," the best of which was the one on Harrison 
Avenue. It built small tenements, somewhat on the 
order of English cottage flats, usually with one family to 
a floor. Every room opened to the outer air, which 
meant much. Each apartment had running water, which 
meant much. But the standards of the time may be in- 
ferred from the fact that toilets in the cellar were not re- 
garded as incompatible with model housing. A com- 



96 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

mittee of ladies was in charge of each estate, and a 
woman agent was employed as manager. 
y/ Robert Treat Paine, a stockholder in the Boston Co- 
operative Building Company, began, in the late seventies, 
to experiment in building houses to sell to workingmen 
on long-time easy payments. He built houses of 4, 
5, and 6 rooms and a bath, and permitted the pay- 
ments to extend over twelve years. In 1888 he organized 
a company of which he became president, the Working- 
men's Building Association, with dividends Hmited to 
6 per cent., to carr}^ out the same ideas on a larger scale. 
The class benefited was, of course, that of skilled labor. 
The association w^as active along these lines for many 
years, but Mr. Paine is understood to have come to the 
conclusion before his death that it was hopeless to com- 
pete with the jerry-builders of the present day. 

C. Alfred T. White Tenements, 1878-1890 

Alfred T. White of Brooklyn, who had long been a 
student of English housing experience, resolved to make 
a demonstration at home of good housing, which should 
bring in good business returns. The result was strik- 
ingly successful. His first tenement group, the Homes 
Buildings, was opened in 1877, the Tower Buildings, 
in 1878, and the Riverside Buildings, which embodied a 
considerable advance, in 1890. 

Gould's report gives pictures, plans, descriptions and 
financial data concerning these enterprises. The two 
earlier ones were more profitable financially, because of 
better management, Gould says, but Mr. White lays the 
smaller returns on the later buildings to the rise which 
had taken place in the cost of labor and building ma- 
terials, rents having been kept at the same figure. In 
two respects at least, Mr, White's buildings are well 



Model Hotising in the United States 97 

ahead of the law and practice of the present day. They 
are only two rooms deep, and they cover but 50 per 
cent, of the lot. The New York tenement house law 
permits from 65 per cent, to 70 per cent, of an interior 
lot to be covered (depending on the depth of the lot) 
and 90 per cent, of a comer lot, and rooms are allowed 
to open on courts in some cases only six feet wide. 

The Riverside Buildings form three sides of a quad- 
rangle, the fourth being left open, and the interior de- 
voted to parking and playgrounds. In requiring fire- 
proof halls and stairs, running water and a toilet inside 
each apartment, the present New York tenement house 
law embodies the standards set by Mr. White. In re- 
spect to baths, of the 20,576 apartments in new tene- 
ments built in New York City during 19 14, all but 220*^ 
contained private baths (Seventh Report of the Tene- 
ment House Department, City of New York, p. 118). 
When Mr. White built, six free baths in the basement ^-^ 
were considered a generous provision for over 200 
families. 

Altogether, Mr. White's buildings accommodated 
nearly 500 families in two-, three- and four-room apart- 
ments with toilet and scullery in addition. The three- 
room apartments, of which there are the largest number, 
rented in 1893 at from $2.10 to $2.90 a week, with a re- 
bate of ten cents a week at the end of the year for those 
who have paid promptly. 

In the case of the Riverside Buildings, the cost of the 
land was $81,892, and the cost of the buildings $264,163. 
The gross rent in 1893 was $33,866.43, which is not 
much under 10 per cent., and the net return was 6 per 
cent. The Tower and Home Buildings were actually 
netting 10 per cent, at that time. 

It is not surprising that a number of enterprises sprang 



98 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

up in the trail of Mr. White's success in combining ac- 
ceptable standards, low rents and good business returns. 
None of his imitators equalled his record. Either high 
standard, low rent or high dividend was sacrificed to a 
greater or less extent in every case. Of course the cost 
of building and the cost of land have greatly increased 
and current rates of interest have decreased, so that flat 
comparisons are unfair, but the fact remains that Mr. 
White's business ability must be credited with a prepon- 
derant share in the success of his demonstration. 

D. City and Suburban Homes Company, 1896 

The largest model tenement properties in this country 
are those erected and owned by the City and Suburban 
Homes Company of New York, which was organized 
in 1896. Dr. Gould, the author of the federal report 
so often quoted, was its president until his death in Au- 
gust, 19 1 5. His successor is Allan Robinson. Mr. 
White is a member of the board of directors, which in- 
cludes such other well-known names as R. Fulton Cut- 
ting, Ogden Mills, Adrian Iselin, Jr., and Isaac N. Selig- 
man. This company is in a sense the lineal descendant 
of the old Workman's Home Association, as it also is 
due to the initiative of the Association for Improving the 
Condition of the Poor. Dividends are limited to 5 per 
cent., but as a matter of fact the stock-holders have con- 
tented themselves with 4 per cent, in spite of surplus 
profits, — an instance of self-denial rare on this side of 
the Atlantic. The company owns property valued at 
more than $7,000,000, the model tenements representing 
$6,336,289.25. " The Company owns several large ten- 
ement properties, accommodating over 11,000 people, 
and a working girls' hotel for 326 guests, on Manhattan 
Island, and has developed a suburban property. Home- 



Model Housing in the United States 99 

wood, in the Borough of Brooklyn, comprising 250 one- 
family houses. . . . On several occasions during the 
last six months there has not been a single vacancy in 
any of the 2,947 apartments. . . . All rents are col- 
lected by women workers who are specially trained for 
their work. These workers know all the families under 
their charge and often help them in solving their domes- 
tic and other problems. . . . The Company has an un- 
broken dividend record of eighteen years." (Twentieth 
Annual Report of the President, May, 19 16.) 

The tenement properties owned by the City and Sub- 
urban Homes Company include the Alfred Corning 
Clark Estate on West 68th Street, with 372 apartments 
(office 415 East 64th St.) ; the Avenue A Estate, with 
1,256 apartments (office 501 East 78th St.); the East 
Seventy-third Street Estate, with 94 apartments (office 
415 East 73rd St.) and two small estates, the Tuskegee 
and Hampton, with 174 apartments for colored tenants. 
The Tuskegee has its office at 213 West 62nd Street and 
the Hampton at 210 West 63rd Street. These two 
groups are especially to be commended, for the diffi- 
culty experienced by colored people in New York, as 
elsewhere, in getting decent homes except at exorbitant 
prices, is notorious. 

The City and Suburban Homes Company's aim is to 
provide at current market rents for ordinary tenements, 
a wholesome and superior type of accommodation. The 
standards do not differ greatly from those established 
by Mr. White in Brooklyn. We find large central courts, 
all light rooms, apartments only two rooms deep, and a 
water-closet within each apartment. All the buildings 
except the Alfred Corning Clark Estate are steam-heated. 
The repairs are admirably kept up, and cleanliness is 
noteworthy. On the other hand, baths are the exception. 



lOO Housing of the Utukilled Wage Earner 

They occur only in the First Avenue and Avenue A Es- 
tates and then only in the four-room apartments. 
Another defect is the prevalence of deep, narrow rooms, 
as 7 feet 6 inches by 12 feet for a bedroom and 7 feet by 
15 feet for a parlor. Some of us would also count it a 
fault that children are not allowed to play in the court- 
yards. 

Rents run from $1.60 a week for a two-room apart- 
ment without bath in the Alfred Corning Clark Estate 
to $5 a week for four rooms and a bath in the First 
Avenue Estate. (Rents are not given in the 19 16 re- 
port, and are taken from that of 1905). 

E. Other Model Tenements in New York 

A list of twenty-six model tenement properties within 
the limits of Greater New York, besides those of Alfred 
T. White and the City and Suburban Homes Company, is 
to be found in the Charities Directory. Among the 
best known are the former Astral Buildings of Brook- 
lyn, now called the Greenpoint Model Tenement; the 
East River Model Homes, erected by Mrs. Vanderbilt 
primarily for families in which tuberculosis exists, in one 
portion of which the A. I. C. P. is conducting its interest- 
ing experiment of bringing the sanatorium to the family ; ^ 
and the Mills Buildings, among which the hotels have at- 
tracted the most attention. Some of those listed in the 
Charities Directory are model tenements only by cour- 
tesy. Some represent experiments undertaken with the 
most admirable motives, which, through lack of business 
management, have never paid expenses. Some of them 
are still struggling. Others have passed into frankly 

1 See "Two Years of the Home Hospital Experiment" (1912-14), 
Pub. No. 84, New York Association for Improving the Condition of 
the Poor. 



Model Housing in the United States loi 

commercial hands. A real estate man who had acquired 
one of these properties, replying to an inquiry as to 
whether he operated under a limited dividend clause, 
said, not without humor, that his dividends were " limi- 
ted by circumstances beyond his control." 

At the outside, there is not over $10,000,000 invested 
in model tenement property in Greater New York, nor 
more than 20,000 persons housed in this way, and this 
represents the developments of forty years. Contrast 
this with the 125,000 persons housed by philanthropic 
societies (foundations and limited dividend companies) 
in London. (W. Thompson, " Housing up to Date," p. 

143- ) 

(2) Two-Hat Houses 

A. Sanitary Improvement Company and Sanitary 
Housing Company, Washington 

After the impetus to the construction of model tene- 
ments had been given by Mr. White, the next important 
step in model housing came from the national capital, 
where the Sanitary Improvement Company was organ- 
ized in 1897. General George M. Sternberg, who for 
nine years previous to his retirement was Surgeon Gen- 
eral of the Army, was the active spirit in its organization 
and served as president until his death in 191 5. 

General Sternberg was widely known as a sanitarian, 
civil and military, and took an active part in the anti- 
tuberculosis campaign in its national aspects as well as in 
the District of Columbia. His deep interest in housing 
was the logical outgrowth of his experience. Asso- 
ciated with him was Dr. George M. Kober, dean of the 
Medical School of Georgetown University, who has suc- 
ceeded him in the presidency of both companies to be 
described. 



I02 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

General Sternberg and his friends, striving to reconcile 
their housing standards with the low rentals required for 
the class of unskilled laborers they hoped to benefit, 
deeply conscious of the objections to tenement house 
life and debarred from the single- family house by the 
high cost of land and construction in Washington, 
evolved as a compromise the two-flat house with its 
separate entrances and separate back yards for the two 
families sharing it. The Washington Sanitary Improve- 
ment Company has built 310 such houses, accommodat- 
ing 620 families in two-, three- and four-room flats, always 
with a bath, toilet, gas and other improvements. Most 
of the houses have furnaces. Rents are calculated on a 
basis of 9 per cent, gross. Dividends of 5 per cent, are 
paid to the stock-holders. The $500,000 for which the 
company was capitalized has been fully subscribed, and 
as the company has borrowed on its holdings and in- 
vested its 2 per cent, surplus as fast as it accumulated, 
it now owns about a million dollars' worth of improved 
real estate. 

The rents of the Sanitary Improvement Company 
range from $10 to $18 a month. The experiment was 
successful in establishing standards, introducing a new 
type of domestic architecture in W^ashington, and prov- 
ing that sound business management is not incompati- 
ble with humanitarian aims. But the tenants were 
largely mechanics, street car conductors and other better 
paid types of wage-earners. 

General Sternberg was not satisfied. He wanted to 
reach the man who could only pay $7 or $8. So in 1904 
he organized the Sanitary Housing Company, which was 
to pay but 4 per cent, to its stock-holders and give the 
tenants the difference in lower rent. Bv strenuous and 



Model Housing in the United States 103 

persistent efforts, General Sternberg raised enough 
money to build a few houses and demonstrated that the 
thing could be done. But capital declined to flow, and 
the activities of the company were halted until its char- 
ter was amended and it> too, was permitted to pay 5 per 
cent, dividends. By Spartan economies and omitting 
the cellar and furnace, this company does, indeed, rent 
its apartments as low as $7.50 per month. Most of 
them are from $8 to $12. It serves a very useful pur- 
pose, and it is to be regretted that only about one-third 
of its capital stock has been subscribed. It has, accord- 
ingly, been able to build so far only ninety-two houses 
for 184 families. A considerable proportion of its ten- 
ants are negroes. 

The two-flat house idea has been widely adopted by 
the commercial builders of Washington, and, renting for 
about $20, has furnished reasonably satisfactory homes 
for skilled workers and a large army of low-paid gov- 
ernment clerks. But the rank and file of unskilled work- 
ers remain in alleys and shacks. 

As chairman of President Roosevelt's Homes Com- 
mission (1908), General Sternberg tried to inspire some 
philanthropist to invest $10,000,000 in workingmen's 
homes in the national capital. But some time before 
his death he had ceased to hope for such an eventuality 
and felt that the only solution of the problem lay in his 
other suggestion, which was embodied in a resolution of 
the President's Homes Commission favoring Govern- 
ment loans. (See Chapter VI, p. 227.) 

In a letter to the writer dated May 12, 19 14, General 
Sternberg estimated that it would take about $3,500,000 
to house the 11,326 inhabitants of the alleys in the cheap- 
est possible sanitary apartments. The alleys contain 



104 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

the worst, but by no means the only bad housing condi- 
tions in Washington, or those affecting the largest num- 
ber of people. 

B. The Schmidlapp Houses in Cincinnati 

Among those who have received their inspiration from 
General Sternberg's work, no one else has done so much 
or with such happy results as Jacob G. Schmidlapp of 
Cincinnati. Starting in 191 1, Mr. Schmidlapp has built 
eighty-eight houses accommodating 326 families and 
1,150 persons ("Low Priced Housing for Wage Earn- 
ers," Jacob G. Schmidlapp, pub. by National Housing As- 
sociation, October, 1916) . About 60 per cent, of his ten- 
ants are colored. 

His earliest ventures were two-flat houses modeled very 
closely on the Washington type. Later he experimented 
in various kinds of single-family house, detached and 
semi-detached, in the double-detached or four-family 
house, and in multiple dwellings with eight apartments. 
All have baths and contain from two to four rooms. 
Rents range from 57^^ cents to 89 cents per room per 
week, not counting the bath as a room. A few of the 
single houses are for sale. The external effect of Mr. 
Schmidlapp's houses is pleasing, and this effect is much 
enhanced by the trees and parking and landscape garden 
treatment of the surroundings. This, of course, necessi- 
tated a considerable tract of land. In fact these houses 
average only eight to the acre. Evidently land is 
cheaper in Cincinnati than in Washington. Recently 
Mr. Schmidlapp has associated some friends with him- 
self, and they have incorporated as the Cincinnati Model 
Homes Company, with a capital and surplus of $500,000 
and a limited dividend of 5 per cent. 



Model Housing in the United States 105 

C. The Improved Housing Association of New Haven 

There have been other efforts to build two-flat houses 
through Hmited dividend companies, but on a very small 
scale. 

The Improved Housing Association of New Haven 
erected a row of eight two-flat houses in 1914. The 
company was capitalized at $50,000, but up to September, 
191 6, only $15,000 had been subscribed. It has paid 
4^ per cent, dividends and is limited to 5 per cent. 

(3) Single-family Houses 

No one who has followed the development of housing 
reform in the United States can doubt that the trend of 
effort is more and more toward the development of gar- 
den suburbs. Yet it is only a tendency, by no means an 
achievement. Think for a moment of the English gar- 
den cities and suburbs, Letchworth, Hampstead, Ealing, 
Bournville, Port Sunlight, White Hart Lane Estate, 
Earswick, Coryndon, Fallings Park and a dozen more. 
What have we to set against them? 

Among employers' enterprises, there are some fairly 
creditable attempts, as we shall see a little later. Among 
limited-dividend companies, we have just one clear-cut 
example of this class — Billerica. 

A. Billerica, Massachusetts 

Billerica, which is still in its swaddling clothes, owes 
its inception and development to the enthusiasm of 
the Rev. C. H. Williams, who gave up his church to de- 
vote himself to it. 

The Billerica Garden Suburb, Inc., is a company with 
5 per cent, limited dividend and a capital stock of $50,- 
000, only a part of which has been subscribed. It owns 
a tract of fifty-six acres adjoining the village of North 



^ 



s^ 



io6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Billerica, Massachusetts, which is twenty-one miles from 
Boston and is the site of the Boston and Maine R. R. 
shops. The tract has been laid out in four zones by 
Arthur C. Comey, who is a city planner and a member of 
the Massachusetts Homestead Commission. Zone A is 
for purchase, Zone B for co-partnership. Zone C for rent- 
ing and Zone D special. The development of the co-part- 
nership project has not yet been started. 

In Zone A thirty houses have been built and occupied 
and five are building. They cost to build from $1,020 
for a four-room and bath semi-detached cottage to $1,694 
for a six-room and bath detached house. Mr. Williams 
explained that it was difficult, at this stage, to apportion 
the cost of land development — grading, streets, sewers, 
water mains, etc. — in a really equitable way. 

The system of selling a house is one of easy payments. 
As soon as the lot is paid for, building is started. The 
demand at present exceeds the ability of the company to 
keep pace. A six-room and a bath house and lot sell for 
$2,300.1 

Billerica is intended to meet the needs of the man 
earning from $15 to $20 a week. Mr. Williams is pro- 
foundly interested in the housing of the man who earns 
less, but has not yet been able to devise a satisfactory way 
of reaching him. 

B. Westerly Gardens, New Jersey 

Another small development along these lines is West- 
erly Gardens, Inc., at Bound Brook, New Jersey. The 
land — five acres — was donated by the founder, the 
late Mr. George La Monte, and the work is carried on 

1 All these costs and prices are pre-war. Owing to having pur- 
chased a considerable supply of materials at pre-war prices, Billerica 
was Sable to continue for a time on a pre-war basis. 



Model Housing in the United States 107 

by his daughter. This enterprise dates from 19 13. 
Nearly $18,000 was spent on sidewalks, sewers, and 
other development expenses. Twenty-one houses have 
been built at a cost of $80,708. All are of hollow tile 
with stucco finish. Most are two-family houses, some 
are single-family houses, and a few accommodate three 
or four families. Altogether forty-nine families are 
provided for. Rents range from $9 to $15 per month. 
The maximum gross rent obtainable would amount to a 
trifle under 9 per cent, on the investment, from which, 
however, is omitted the value of the donated land. 
Westerly Gardens is laid out on a rectilinear plan. 

C. Titus Town, Virginia 

The Titus Town, Virginia, enterprise may be conven- 
iently treated here, though it can hardly in strictness be 
called a garden suburb. Dividends are limited voluntar- 
ily by the proprietor, who says the houses are sold at a 
profit, but that there is not " a commercial return." Mr. 
Stroud deprecates the use of the word philanthropic, but 
there is no doubt as to his humane purposes or as to the 
beneficent efifect of his work. 

In 1 90 1 a group of negroes who were about to be 
turned out of their modest homes by the operations of 
land improvement companies on the outskirts of Nor- 
folk, called on A. T. Stroud, a young lawyer belonging 
to a well-known Norfolk family, and asked him to buy 
some land and build houses for them so that they would 
not be forced to move into the crowded alleys and tene- 
ments of the city. Titus Town was the result. On a 
tract of 100 acres, 200 single- family frame houses have 
been built and sold so far. They cannot be said to come 
up to the best American standards of housing. They 
have neither baths nor sewers. Many belong distinctly 



io8 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

to the box style of architecture. But compared with 
the usual type of house available for negro laborers, they 
represent a noteworthy advance, and as an alternative 
to living in crowded, insanitary tenements, they are as 
paradise. Something very cheap had to be worked out if 
these families, with average earnings of $io a week, 
were to live in and purchase them, and Mr. Stroud has 
probably evolved the very best possible solution under the 
circumstances. The houses have from four to eight 
rooms, with water and electric lights. A medium-sized 
house costs $700 and sells for $975, which after deduct- 
ing the value of land and improvements, cannot leave 
much of a profit. The terms of payment are $3 down 
and $3 weekly. Alternate lots have been built on, and 
the vacant lots are cultivated as gardens by those living 
in the adjoining houses. Mr. Stroud calculates the av- 
erage value of the produce of these gardens at $50 a 
year. Titus Town has a good school, a lodge, a church, 
a park and a fine civic spirit. 

It is much to be desired that Mr. Stroud's example 
should find many imitators, but thus far we know of 
none. 

D. Torrance, California 

They see things in the large in California, and the in- 
dustrial city of Torrance was started in that spirit. 
Frederick Law Olmstead drew the plans. The Domin- 
guez Land Corporation is the holding company. It 
owns 3,500 acres, 750 of which are included in the pres- 
ent town site, 30 acres being set aside for parks. Tor- 
rance is strategically situated on the railroad which con- 
nects Los Angeles with its seaport. Nevertheless its 
growth has been disappointing. It was calculated for 
15,000 inhabitants. Building began in 191 2, and four 



Model Housing in the United States 109 

years later only 171 frame and concrete houses, 
mostly bungalows, had been built, and a few apartment 
houses. Altogether there were accommodations for 211 
families. The houses are of attractive appearance and 
seem to have all the modern improvements — baths, elec- 
tric lights, etc. All of them are for sale " at cost plus 
a very small profit," but most of them are in fact rented. 
Rents are said to be 8 per cent, gross and 4 per cent, net, 
but figures are not given. The average cost of lots, in- 
cluding improvements, is put at $600 and of the houses 
at $1,000. The position of this, as of other companies 
similarly situated, is, in the writer's judgment, materially 
weakened by not having dividends legally limited. It 
would be interesting to know whether the liquor re- 
striction (none allowed to be sold), has had any in- 
fluence in retarding the development of Torrance. Sir 
William Lever abandoned the no-license policy at Port 
Sunlight after having clung to it through many years. 

3. OCTAVIA HILL ENTERPRISES 

These do not form a logical connecting link between 
limited dividend and employers' enterprises. Indeed, 
from the point of view of the motive of the founders, 
they are pretty certain to be, like many of the limited 
dividend undertakings, purely philanthropic. The com- 
mercial admixture comes in through the owners of the 
property which the Octavia Hill Association may manage 
as agent. The Octavia Hill idea is, in fact, a plan of 
management only, and may be applied to any type of 
house, old or new, with any type of ownership, philan- 
thropic or commercial. 



no Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

(i) Octaz'ia Hill and Her Work in London 

Octavia Hill was a London woman of rare personality, 
who, without capital or backing save that furnished by 
loyal friends, and amid all the hand and foot shackles of 
the mid-Victorian era, proved that the most unpromis- 
ing old tenements could be put in a fairly sanitary con- 
dition by judicious repairs, and that through devoted 
personal service and the establishment of friendly rela- 
tions with the tenants, the houses could be kept clean 
and decent and a great improvement effected in the health 
and habits of the people living in them. Hence the 
woman social worker, or friendly visitor, as a substitute 
for the man rent collector. It is a form of home mis- 
sionary work with improved housing as a background. 
It was in 1865 that, with the help of Ruskin, she raised 
enough money to buy three dilapidated houses in Mar}4e- 
bone and start her initial experiment. Not long after, 
she was one of the founders of the London Charity Or- 
ganization Society. These two facts are not discon- 
nected accidents. The Octavia Hill idea in housing is 
only one special application of the C. O. S. philosophy. 
This thought suggests at once its appropriate sphere of 
action and its appropriate limits. It has a most use- 
ful function to perform in subnormal or misfit groups, 
including under the latter such non-English-speaking 
immigrants as need a temporarily paternalistic treat- 
ment. To link it up with housing reform in general 
would be most unfortunate. The relationship it seeks to 
establish, save for the exceptional classes mentioned, 
would be undemocratic, un-American, and certain to be 
resented in proportion to the intelligence and independ- 
ence of the tenant. 

All of which is not to minimize the splendid work done 



Model Housing in the United States iii 

by Octavia Hill herself in London, and by the Octavia 
Hill Association of Philadelphia, which furnishes a story 
of patient, persevering, concrete, non-spectacular, but 
eminently efficient service stretching over more than a 
score of years. 

(2) Octavia Hill Association of Philadelphia 

Following a meeting called by the Civic Club of 
Philadelphia, the association was organized in June, 1896, 
as a joint-stock company for "holding, selling and leas- 
ing real estate," its aim being '* to improve the living 
conditions of the poorer residence districts of the City 
of Philadelphia" (Articles of Incorporation). "It of- 
fers its services as agent to other owners of like proper- 
ties. In this capacity it attends to collection, altera- 
tions, repairs, clerical and special work, general over- 
sight, etc., and makes a fair charge for such services." 
The articles of incorporation do not limit the dividends, 
but the directors have always limited them, at first to 
4}i per cent., afterwards to 4 per cent., all surplus go- 
ing into a reserve fund, which is used to expand the work, 
or draw against in years of depression. 

Starting with an authorized capital of $20,000, the 
association gradually increased it to $200,000, a very 
remarkable achievement. 

During its first year of activity it bought and renovated 
five houses on South 7th and Carver Streets and rented 
them to ten families. Two years later it owned four- 
teen houses and was acting as agent for seventeen. From 
its 20th Annual Report, January 22, 19 17, we find that 
it owns 179 houses with 244 families and is agent for 
224 houses with 460 families. It has reclaimed several 
unsavory neighborhoods. It maintains and manages a 
playground which has been donated to it adjacent to a 



112 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

row of its houses in a particularly neglected region. It 
started the Philadelphia Housing Commission in 1909 
with representatives of forty organizations. It has been 
active in securing and enforcing legislation to improve 
housing conditions in Philadelphia. In 1904 for the 
first time it built new houses, having torn down some 
dilapidated structures which it had acquired and put up 
two-apartment houses. In 191 2 it did the same thing in 
Germantown. 

In 19 14 it organized a subsidiary corporation, the 
Philadelphia Model Housing Company, whose $20,000 
worth of paid up capital stock is owned by the parent as- 
sociation. Its dividends are not legally limited and are 
calculated at 6 per cent. This company acquired half of 
a city block (.81 acre) and erected, during 1915, 
thirty-two two-story brick houses. There are two rows 
of 14 houses, one row of 4 houses and an interior play 
ground, with individual garden plot allotments. The 
16 single-family houses contain 5 rooms and a bath and 
have a hot air furnace. The 32 apartments in the two- 
family houses each contain 3 rooms and a bath. Rents 
are from $8 to $12.50. The cost of the land was $10,- 
332.50 and of the buildings $53,321.46. The rent 
amounts to just short of 10 per cent, gross. There is to 
be a I per cent, depreciation fund and a half month's 
rebate at the end of the year for careful tenants. The 
architectural effect is severely plain, for economy's sake, 
but the eye is relieved by certain variations in the building 
line. 

(3) Octavia Hill Idea Applied Elsewhere 

The Octavia Hill Association of Philadelphia is the 
only one so named, but the Octavia Hill idea has been 
adopted more or less fully by various organizations. 



Model Housing in the United States 113 

The Boston Cooperative Building Company was one of 
the first to introduce the woman rent collector with so- 
cial worker's training. The Housing Committee of the 
Woman's Welfare Department of the Civic Federation in 
Washington recently tried it out for a year on the houses 
of the Washington Sanitary Housing Company. The 
City and Suburban Homes Company of New York have 
specially trained women rent collectors. They do not, 
however, label the service. 

If there is danger involved in the employment of so- 
cial workers to reform tenants, no possible objection 
can be brought against the employment of social workers 
to reform management, since this is self-imposed. 

Trinity Corporation's story offers some features of 
special interest. In the first place it represents the con- 
version of a sinner, though the conversion was not of an 
unduly sudden sort. Reference has already been made 
to the bitter fight in the courts waged by Trinity Cor- 
poration against the enforcement of the running-water- 
on-each-floor provision of the Tenement House Act of 
1887. The report of the Tenement House Committee 
of 1894 contains many references to the tenement prop- 
erty owned by Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. But 
it was not until 1909, and after considerable further 
criticism, that action was taken. The property committee 
of the vestry asked Emily W. Dinwiddie, at that time 
Secretary of the Tenement House Committee of the 
New York Charity Organization Society, to investigate 
the dwellings under the control of Trinity Corporation. 
Following her report, they appointed her supervisor. 
Under her tactful guidance Trinity Church has become a 
model landlord. The leases of the properties which were 
being badly administered by others have been gradually 
taken up. In 19 14 Miss Dinwiddie reported with satis- 



114 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

faction the extinction of a 40-year lease, which they had 
not been able to induce the lessee to cancel, on which 
was located the last saloon on land belonging to the 
church. Many of the worst houses have been torn down 
and factories erected in their place. But Trinity is still 
landlord to 892 families. Of its 367 dwelling houses, 
251 are one- or two-family houses. None are over five 
stories, and the greatest number are three stories. 
Nearly all have large back yards with flowers growing 
in them, and the old houses are not without a quaint 
restful charm of their own. Rents run from $7 for 
three rooms to $25 for ten. They are not in structure 
model houses, but their maintenance and management 
have become model since 19 10. 

4. INDUSTRIAL HOUSING BY EMPLOYERS 

Employers' housing enterprises have played an im- 
portant part in providing homes for working people in 
the past, and are likely to play an increasingly impor- 
tant part in the near future. Employers used to build 
houses either from necessity, because there was no other 
way of sheltering their workers, or from philanthropy. 
Enlightened self-interest is a third and comparatively 
new motive. Employers are only beginning to awaken to 
the fact that a badly housed worker is an inefficient 
worker, and that they have a direct pecuniary interest 
in seeing that their employees have decent homes. The 
National Housing Association is lending its influence 
to quicken this awakening. If one may judge by the 
papers and discussions at the Fifth National Housing 
Conference (October 10, 11, 12, 1916, Providence, R. I.), 
the goal aimed at is the voluntary acceptance on the 
part of employers of a low return on the money they are 
investing in houses (say 4 per cent.), so as to keep up 



Model Housing in the United States 115 

standards and keep down rents, on the theory that they 
will reap their reward in the increased efficiency of their 
working force. One might consider it a more whole- 
some state of affairs, were the employers to increase 
wages to the point where their men could afford to pay 
the usual commercial returns on their houses in the 
form of rent, but few employers are likely to act on 
the suggestion. 

( I ) Early Examples 

The early efforts of the employers resulted as a rule 
in wretchedly poor houses (as in the anthracite coal 
region of Pennsylvania), or were extremely paternal- 
istic (as the Pullman experiment), or both. Perhaps 
the longest unbroken record in housing, though one not 
otherwise startling, is held by the Peace Dale Manu- 
facturing Company, of Peace Dale, Rhode Island. Its 
building activity runs from 1840 to 191 1. Many houses 
have been sold, but the company still owns 61 houses for 
120 families. The houses are frame and the majority 
far from modern, but the rents are low and they are 
kept in good repair. The lack of baths in the homes 
is partly atoned for by public baths donated by the 
Hazard family, which owns the mills and has done 
considerable welfare-work of a personal sort, as well as 
donating ten acres of park, a library, kindergarten, pub- 
lic hall and gymnasium. Gould does not include Peace 
Dale in his report, but Hanger does. 

Two New England mill companies, whose housing op- 
erations, described by Gould, began during the sixties and 
are still more or less active, are S. D. Warren and 
Co., of Cumberland Mills, Maine, and the Willimantic 
Linen Company of Willimantic, Connecticut. The 
Fairbanks Company at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, a great 



Ii6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

many years ago built about one hundred and twenty-five 
houses, but have sold nearly all on easy terms of pay- 
ment and practically at cost, and are building no more. 

(2) Pullman 

The Pullman experiment, which dates from 1881, 
was quite the most elaborate and expensive of the earher 
ventures, but in spite of many admirable features, must 
be counted a failure. Its fault was excessive paternal- 
ism. The town was created for and by the Pullman 
Palace Car Company, which laid out the streets, sewers, 
water mains, all of the best quality, planted trees, and 
built houses, schools, libraries, churches, shops, etc. No 
saloons were allowed. Three-story tenements were built 
with three- and four-room apartments, renting for $8 
and $9. There were single-family houses renting from 
$15 to $50. All rooms were light and every apartment 
contained a toilet. The Pullman employees objected to 
the restrictions, objected to the paternalism, objected to 
eating, sleeping, going to school and to church with the 
company as well as w^orking for it and felt the in- 
evitable check on the development of trade unionism 
and self-help. Mr. Pullman felt that his employees were 
imgrateful for the many substantial benefits conferred. 
The experiment was the subject of the most fervent 
encomiums and the most bitter attacks. Ten or twelve 
years ago it was discovered that the company charter 
did not permit it to own houses, and the property was 
all sold. The town of Pullman had previously been in- 
corporated in the city of Chicago. 

(3) Foreign Examples 

It is rather strange, in view of the constructive im- 
agination of American business men, their habit of see- 



Model Housing in the United States 117 

ing things in the large, their fondness for the tallest 
building, largest output, greatest number of spindles, and 
all other superlatives, and the vast scale of their bene- 
factions, that no American employer has tried to surpass 
the achievement of Sir William Lever at Port Sunlight, 
of Mr. Cadbury at Bournville, or of the Krupps at Essen. 
Indeed, in spite of all that has been said and written in 
praise of these garden cities, no serious attempt has 
been made in the United States to equal them. 

A brief summary of facts concerning Port Sunlight, 
Bournville and Margarethenhohe may not be amiss at 
this point. 

A. Port Sunlight 

Port Sunlight is an industrial garden city on the out- 
skirts of Liverpool created by Sir William Lever, the 
soap manufacturer. There are 140 acres in the village 
site and 90 reserved for the works. The village con- 
tains 600 5-room-and-bath cottages of attractive appear- 
ance, which rent for five shillings a week. In order to 
pay 4 per cent, on the investment and set aside i per cent, 
for depreciation, the rent would have to be doubled. The 
firm spends about £10,000 a year for interest on the £350,- 
000 invested in the village, and regards this as one of its 
legitimate business expenses. The low death-rates and 
the wonderful showing of the Port Sunlight school boys 
compared with those of Liverpool will be discussed later 
(Chapter V, p. 160). 

B. Bournville 

George Cadbury, the cocoa manufacturer of Birming- 
ham, wished to make a demonstration that would be 
widely copied, to which end he believed it necessary 
to make his garden city pay 4 per cent, return. These 



ii8 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

profits, however, go into the trust fund and are ap- 
pHed to pubHc purposes. As somewhat less than half 
of Mr. Gadbury's houses are occupied by his employees, 
it is not an employer's enterprise in any narrow sense. 
The first houses were built at Bournville in 1879, but 
large-scale building dates from 1895. ^t was in 1900 
that Mr. Cadbury turned over the property to a Trast 
which he founded for that purpose. The property in- 
cludes 500 acres and is valued at £253,000. In 19 10, 
when a report was issued, there were 747 cottages in 
Bournville, only a few of which rented as cheaply as those 
at Port Sunlight. Most of them are necessarily be- 
yond the means of unskilled workers. Bournville health 
records have also been quoted. 

C. Essen 

Alfred Krupp began building-' dwellings for his em- 
ployees at Essen in 1861, but the early efforts produced 
only barrack tenements of dreary aspect. Housing ideals 
and architectural style improved with the years, how- 
ever, and Margarethenhohe, on the outskirts of Essen, is 
a recent and very beautiful example of the garden suburb. 
It is the fruit of an endowment fund set aside by one 
of the Krupps in honor of his daughter. 

The Krupps house 12,800 of their employees, making 
with their families, more than 44,000 persons. The 
houses, as intimated, represent a wide range of stand- 
ards. In 1889 Friedrich Alfred Krupp set aside a 
fund of 500,000 marks for housing loans to employees 
who preferred to build themselves. 

(4) Ledaire 

Leclaire furnishes a good transition from earlier to 
later undertakings, for the first houses were built in 1891 
and the latest quite recently. The H. O. Nelson Manu- 



Model Hotising in the United States 119 

facturing Company, located at Edwardsville, 111., eighteen 
miles northeast of St. Louis, laid out this attractive resi- 
dential community on garden suburb lines. It is primarily 
for their own employees, but it is not restricted to them. 
They have one hundred and twenty-five acres with curved 
streets and plenty of trees. Two hundred detached 
single- family houses have been built, mostly frame, aver- 
aging five rooms each, with water, natural gas and sewer 
connection, baths in most of the houses and hot air 
furnaces in about half. Very few of the houses are 
rented, the aim being home ownership. The sale price is 
calculated at 5 per cent, more than the actual cost, and 
the method of payment is i per cent, a month, includ- 
ing 6 per cent, interest on unpaid balance. 

The architecture is uneven, some of the earlier houses 
being over-ornate. The spirit of the community is good 
and its relations with the company friendly. The com- 
pany officials emphasize the complete independence of 
the residents of Leclaire and the entire absence of 
paternalism. 

(5) Goodyear Heights 

Another home-owning enterprise, and one of the best 
known of them, is that of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber 
Company at Akron, Ohio. They have incorporated a 
subsidiary company (The Goodyear Heights Realty Co., 
1912), and of a hundred-acre tract adjoining Akron, have 
developed twenty-eight acres on approved garden suburb 
lines. This part of the work was done by Warren H. 
Manning, the landscape architect, the houses being de- 
signed by Mann and MacNeille. The tract is hilly and 
contains a lake and many trees. Parks and playgrounds 
are being reserved. The houses are very attractive, sub- 
stantially built (usually brick or stucco), containing from 



I20 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

five to eight rooms, with all improvements, — water, gas, 
electricity, hot air furnaces and bath. Two hundred and 
fifty-one had been built to August i, 191 6. 

The aim of the company is to sell to its employees at 
cost, but this liberality is limited to those who attain a 
prescribed degree of permanence. For the first five 
years payments are made on a basis of cost + 25 per 
cent. If, at the end of five years, the semi-monthly pay- 
ments have been promptly made and the purchaser is still 
employed by the company, he is credited with this excess 
amount and payments for the remaining ten years are 
made on a cost basis. ^ Lots range from $240 to 
$760, averaging about $500 (average size 50 by 100 
feet). Houses vary in cost from $1,800 to $2,500. Rub- 
ber workers are of a class intermediate between me- 
chanics and unskilled workers. The Goodyear Com- 
pany in filling out the National Housing Association 
questionnaire in 19 16, placed their average wages 
at %22y and said that the payments on their houses aver- 
age 33 per cent, of their income, an extremely high pro- 
portion. Of course, such a development as this does 
not get within speaking distance of the problem of 
housing unskilled workers. 

(6) Indian Hill 

The same may be said of the Norton Grinding Com- 
pany of Worcester, Massachusetts, who through a sub- 
sidiary company (Indian Hill Co.), have developed a 
ninety-acre suburban tract, in a very beautiful way. 
Grosvenor Atterbury was their architect. This is a 
new enterprise, fifty-eight single-family detached and 
semi-detached frame or stucco houses having been built 

^This plan is, of course, in frank conflict with the principle of 
mobility of labor. 



Model Housing in the United States 121 

in 19 1 5 and 19 16. The houses of 4, 5 and 6 rooms, 
with bath, gas, electricity and steam heat, are sold to 
foremen and mechanics, earning $22 to $35 per week, at 
cost, according to the National Housing Association 
questionnaire returns, 10 per cent, down, 25 per cent, 
in twelve years, the rest on demand, secured by mort- 
gage. The rate of interest is not stated. 

(7) Hopedale 

Unique among really attractive industrial garden city 
developments in the United States, because the rents 
charged are not beyond the means of unskilled workers, 
is Hopedale, Massachusetts. The Draper Company has 
provided dwellings for five hundred and fifty-one famil- 
ies of its employees. The houses have shingle sides, 
and the architectural and landscape effects are good. 
Rents for a six-room-and-bath house go as low as $2.12 
a week. There are also two-flat houses with apartments 
renting at $1.25 a week. No particulars are obtainable 
as to the cost of these houses, or to what extent the en- 
terprise is self-supporting. 

(8) Roehling 

Roebling, New Jersey, an industrial suburb of Tren- 
ton, for the employees of the John A. Roebling's Sons 
Company wire mills, provides houses for various grades 
of workers. The town contains five hundred and thirty- 
one residences, a hotel, school, general store, bakery, 
drug store, auditorium, amusement building, stable and 
garage, and a hospital. The dwellings are brick, single- 
family houses, semi-detached, and in rows, with from 
four to ten rooms, renting at from $9.50 to $22 per 
month. All have water and toilet in the house. Those 
renting at $11 and over have bath, steam heat and electric 



122 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

light. This $11 type, with six rooms and bath, in good- 
looking rows, seem, judging from illustrations, to give 
the best values. Data as to capital invested and what 
returns it brings are not obtainable. The town planning 
was done by the company's regular office force and is of 
the T square variety. 

(9) Kistler 

An interesting enterprise is the industrial garden vil- 
lage of Kistler, Pennsylvania, which is being built on 
the banks of the Juniata by the Mount Union Refrac- 
tories Company. The town planning was done by John 
Nolen, and the houses were designed by Mann and Mac- 
Neille. Building began in 19 15. The houses may be 
either rented or sold. Prices have been kept down and 
standards up to an unusual degree. Mr. Nolen, in 
" More Houses for Bridgeport," gives the plans of a 
five-room-and-bath semi-detached house which rents for 
$10 per month and costs the company for building and 
land $1,200. On what terms it is sold does not appear, 
but the rent seems to be figured on the basis of 6 per 
cent. net. The tract which the company is developing 
contains fifty acres and includes parks, playgrounds, 
school sites and other garden village features. 

(10) Marcus Hook 

Marcus Hook, the industrial garden village of the 
Viscose Company, adjoining their factory site, near 
Chester, Pennsylvania, is said to look more like an Eng- 
lish garden village than anything else developed in this 
country. As the company is the American branch of 
an English firm, this is not surprising. Planning and 
designing were in the hands of Ballin^er and Perrot of 



Model Housing in the United States 123 

Philadelphia, and Mr. Perrot made a trip abroad to 
study industrial garden villages. The houses are all of 
brick with slate roofs, built in rows, but with suffi- 
cient architectural differentiations to avoid monotony. 
Some are of six and some of eight rooms, all with bath, 
water, gas and furnace. Altogether on a twenty-acre 
tract there are two hundred and fifteen dwellings, two 
boarding houses, a village store, and a dining hall and 
recreation building. The houses are rented and the 
rents are said to be extremely low, but no figures are 
given, nor is there any statement of the amount of 
capital invested. The tenants are foremen, clerks, 
mechanics and unskilled workers. Wages are not given. 
A beautifully illustrated pamphlet gives many of these 
facts and states that " the plant employs in the neigh- 
borhood of two thousand operatives, so it can be readily 
seen that where several members of the same family are 
employed at the mill, a goodly number are housed in the 
village provided by the company." This employment 
of women and young workers probably accounts for the 
possibility of unskilled workers living in such large 
houses. 

(11) Hauto and Nanticoke 

Hauto and Nanticoke are interesting as experiments 
in building materials. The Lehigh Coal and Naviga- 
tion Company houses at Hauto, Pennsylvania, begun in 
19 1 3, are all of hollow tile. They have 4, 5 and 6 rooms. 
Some, but not all, have baths. Rents are from $11 
to $17. The forty six-room houses of the Delaware 
and Lackawanna Railroad Coal Companies at Nanti- 
coke, Pennsylvania (no bathrooms), are of poured con- 
crete and rent for the low figure of $8 per month. 



124 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

(12) Morgan Park 

Without question, employers are taking an ever-in- 
creasing interest in the housing of their employees. 
Several recent developments have been on a large scale 
and of a high standard. Prominent among these may 
be mentioned Morgan Park, built for its employees in 
the outskirts of Duluth by the Minnesota Steel Com- 
pany, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corpora- 
tion. It is carefully laid out and contains single-family 
houses, detached and in groups, and a few flats, alto- 
gether accommodating four hundred and thirty-seven 
families. Single men are provided for in company 
boarding houses. Houses rent from $15 a month up. 
An illustrated account of Morgan Park by Leifur Mag- 
nusson will be found in the Monthly Review of the U. S. 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, April, 191 8. 

(13) Eclipse Park 

Another still more recent development is Eclipse Park, 
an industrial garden suburb of Beloit, Wisconsin, which 
is being carried out by the Fairbank Morse Company for 
its employees. Some three hundred and fifty detached 
houses are to be built on a fifty-three-acre tract. All 
are for sale at prices var}ang for house and lot from 
$2,400 for four rooms and a bath to $3,100 for eight 
rooms and a bath. 

Mr. Veiller has an article describing Eclipse Park in 
the March, 19 18, number of the Architectural Record. 

The U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish 
shortly a comprehensive report on " Housing by Employ- 
ers " in the United States. An advance summary ap- 
peared in the November, 19 17, number of the Bureau's 
Monthly Review and has since been issued separately. 
Its study covers two hundred and thirteen companies 



Model Housing in the United States 125 

with all sorts of housing standards, good, bad and in- 
different. 

(14) Undesirable Examples 

It is rather invidious to select certain companies to 
illustrate bad points, and it is by no means intended to 
convey the idea that these are the only offenders or the 
worst. They are merely typical, and the subject cannot 
be presented concretely without instances. Mining vil- 
lages, whether in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Colorado, 
are notoriously dreary spots. As if it were not enough 
to spend the working day underground, without coming 
home at night to a comfortless box in a monotonous 
row of comfortless boxes! The Colorado Fuel and Iron 
Company is justly proud of having piped pure water to 
some of its settlements and eliminated typhoid, though 
the fact that this is sufficiently exceptional to cause pride 
would seem to be something of a commentary on the 
prevailing standards. Its newer houses are four-room 
(occasionally six-room) hollow tile and concrete bunga- 
lows, but they and their surroundings are as bare and 
cheerless as the older wooden houses. Their rooms 
are very small, and they are crowded together as though 
the land had the value of a Broadway frontage. Some 
have running water, some have sewer connection, most 
have electric lights, but only a few have baths. Rents 
are $2 per room per month. 

The Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company in their villages 
of Ishpeming and Gwinn have a melancholy collection 
of five- to eight-room wooden houses, without any con- 
veniences except piped water, which they rent at from 
$5 to $10 a month with fifty cents extra for the 
water. They evince a commendable desire to hide some 
of the ugliness by offering prizes for yards and win- 



126 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

dow boxes and publish illustrated pamphlets showing 
how well vines can hide what is behind them. Recently, 
they consulted a landscape architect and learned (better 
late than never) that the beautiful forest trees they 
were cutting down would be quite an asset if left growing 
along these stricken village streets. 

The Southern cotton mill owners have built for their 
employees many thousand flimsy wooden cottages, with- 
out any sort of conveniences, of which the one good 
thing to be said is that they are cheap, renting at 50 
cents, 75 cents or $1 per room per month. They 
usually consist of four rooms. The well and the yard 
privy are almost universal. There is some reason to 
hope, though, that recent discoveries in regard to hook- 
worm will eventually modernize these conditions. Such 
cottages do not, as a rule, yield a commercial return on 
the investment, but this loss is cheaper for the company 
than paying a living wage. 

Even in the scrupulously colorless government pub- 
lications, one may read an indictment between the lines. 
Take Hanger's description of the houses of the Pelzer 
Manufacturing Company at Pelzer, South Carolina 
(U. S. Bulletin of Labor, Vol 9, No. 54, 1904, " Hous- 
ing of the Working People in the United States by 
Employers," G. W. W. Hanger, pp. 1224, 1225). He 
says this is one of the largest cotton manufacturing plants 
in the South. It has two thousand eight hundred em- 
ployees, all of whom live in company houses. In fact, in 
this unincorporated town of six thousand inhabitants, 
everything belongs to the mills and no home ownership is 
allowed. There are about one thousand cottages, aver- 
aging four rooms each, with the remarkably low rental 
of fifty cents per room per month, — barely enough to 
pay taxes and repairs. Hanger has pictures of these 



\ 



Model Housing in the United States 127 

cottages. They do not inspire enthusiasm. This is 
what he says about them : *' The mild dimate and some- 
what primitive methods of Hfe prevaiHng in this sec- 
tion render more elaborate housing facilities unneces- 
sary." 

In connection with this statement, it may be interest- 
ing to compare the study of " Family Budgets of Typical 
Cotton Mill Workers" (Vol. XVI, '^ Woman and Child 
Wage Earners in the United States," 191 1, p. 29), 
where it is pointed out that the houses of the Southern 
cotton mill operatives are so flimsily built that it costs 
more to heat them, with less satisfactory results, than 
cotton mill operatives pay in Fall River, Massachusetts. 
(This is not to be interpreted, however, as an endorse- 
ment of the housing standards of Fall River!) 

Even if the housing standards achieved were satis- 
factory, the feudalism of the relationship established in 
these mill towns would be open to serious criticism. A. 
J. McKelway in his " Child Wages in the Cotton Mill ; 
Our Modern Feudalism" (Pamphlet 199, pub. by the 
National Child Labor Committee, 19 13), quotes a mill 
operative referring to his employer as follows : 

" We work in his mill. We live in his houses. Our 
children go to his school. On Sunday we go to hear his 
preacher. . . . And when we die we are buried in his 
cemetery." 

From the *' Summary of the Report on the Condi- 
tion of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United 
States " (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bui. 175, 
Dec, 1915, p. 78), we cull the following: "It was 
the exception for families to own their homes, only 
126 of the 854 New England families and 76 of the 1,567 



128 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Southern families visited being owners. Of the famihes 
who did not own homes, in New England 28 per cent, 
and in the South 91.5 per cent, lived in company houses. 
There seemed a growing sentiment among the more 
highly skilled and self-respecting operatives against liv- 
ing in company houses. . . . The mill village of the 
South is usually unincorporated, and the establishment 
and enforcement of sanitary regulations depends en- 
tirely upon the mill company. Hence, conditions varied 
from excellent to unspeakably bad." 

A rather pathetic instance of recent housing activity, 
because it appears to be so naively well-intentioned, is 
that of a plant in a Middle Western city. This com- 
pany is engaged at the present time in creating what it 
calls a garden city. Four-room semi-detached and six- 
room detached one-story frame houses are being built 
fifteen feet apart, wnth a few small flower beds and 
bits of grass to justify the title. The houses contain 
water and gas, but no other conveniences. There are 
community toilets as well as baths in a central building. 
Each family is encouraged and expected to take from 
eight to ten male boarders or lodgers. The plans of the 
houses show one good-sized living-room, an alcove-like 
kitchen (13 feet 4 inches by 5 feet and 17 feet 2 inches by 
4 feet 8 inches) and two or four bedrooms with beds indi- 
cated in the plan. From two to six beds are allowed to a 
room. The room containing six beds is 17 feet by 17 
feet 4 inches. The people housed are Hungarian. In 
the four little houses already built (two of each type), 50 
people are living, and 400 are to be housed eventually in 
the " garden city." 

All of which goes to show that housing by employers is 
not necessarily model housing and that the magic words 



Model Housing in the United States 129 

" garden city " do not always connote an earthly para- 
dise. 

5. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ENTERPRISES 

Logically, this group should have been described be- 
fore housing by employers; but chronologically, it is 
such a late comer that it has to be considered last. For 
several years past chambers of commerce have been 
showing an increasing interest in the housing of wage 
earners, which has resulted, in a number of instances, in 
the organization of housing companies, sometimes with 
limited dividends, sometimes without. Sometimes the 
impelling motive is a sense of civic responsibiHty for the 
housing of all citizens. Sometimes it is the business en- 
terprise which seeks to attract some new industry, war- 
boom, or other, by showing preparation to supply high- 
grade accommodations for an influx of workers. 
Usually the two motives are blended. Even where the 
housing company represents little more than a group of 
employers, the situation is free from many of the ob- 
jections found in housing by the individual employer. 

(i) The Albany Home Building Company, launched 
by the Albany Chamber of Commerce in 191 1, with a 
capital of $100,000 and a 5 per cent, limited dividend, is 
probably the oldest of this group. It has built a num- 
ber of detached and semi-detached houses, which sell 
from $1,900 to $3,300 and rent from $14 up. 

(2) Elmira Home Building Company 

The Elmira Chamber of Commerce organized its 
Home Building Company early in 19 16 with a capital of 
$200,000 ($100,000 paid up). Fifty single-family de- 



130 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

tached houses of frame or stucco are being built, which 
are expected to yield a rental return of 5 per cent. net. 
The dividend, however, is not legally limited. Sales will 
be made on a i per cent, a month basis. 

(3) Bridgeport and Kenosha Companies 

Two important recent developments are the Kenosha 
Homes Company and the Bridgeport Housing Com- 
pany, both incorporated in 19 16 as the result of surveys 
and reports made by John Nolen. In one case his serv- 
ices had been engaged by the Manufacturers' Associa- 
tion of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the other by the Cham- 
ber of Commerce of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Both com- 
panies were capitalized at $1,000,000. The Kenosha 
Homes Company, which got the earlier start, expected to 
have 400 detached single- family houses built within the 
year. 

The houses of all four of the companies mentioned 
represent an excellent standard. 

(4) Later Developments 

During 19 17 the FHnt (Michigan) Chamber of Com- 
merce organized the Civic Building Company, which 
purchased a 400-acre tract of land just outside the city 
and started an energetic building program. The houses 
are to be sold. 

The same year saw the launching of the Williamsport 
(Pennsylvania) Improvement Company by the local 
Board of Trade. Sawyer Park, an unusually attractive 
garden suburb, is the result. 

About the same time the Cleveland Chamber of Com- 
merce brought into being the Cleveland Homes Company, 
a unique experiment in financing home building by pay- 
ing cash to the builder, extending credit to the purchaser, 



Model Hoiising in the United States 131 

and dividing the saving. The outcome will be watched 
with interest. 

Not all Chamber of Commerce housing projects mater- 
ialize. The Cincinnati and the Pittsburgh Chambers 
both got as far as the printed prospectus stage and gave 
it up. 

6. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 

A few general conclusions may appear warranted. 

( 1 ) The trend of opinion is away from multiple dwel- 
lings and toward single-family houses in garden suburbs. 
The National Housing Association is making its in- 
fluence felt in this direction. 

(2) Philanthropy can set standards, and this is a 
function the importance of which must not be belittled, 
but it cannot supply the demand for cheap and whole- 
some homes for workingmen. At all events it never 
has done so at any time or in any place. Nor is it 
desirable that it should. What kind of civilization would 
it be that made the possession of a decent home by the 
bulk of American workingmen dependent on the generous 
impulses of private philanthropy? 

(3) Housing by employers sometimes provides sat- 
isfactorily for health and comfort, sometimes not. It is 
an important factor, and perhaps may prove increasingly 
so. But it is at best a make-shift. It can never furnish 
the final solution unless we are to go back to feudalism. 
The instinct of the workingman who dislikes the com- 
pany house, the company school, the company store, is 
sound. The system is undemocratic, un-American, and 
the workingman who accepts it gives up a considerable 
share of his independence. 

(4) Looking back over the path we have traveled thus 
far, certain high points stand out clearly: 



132 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

There are housing conditions all over the United States 
which cannot be tolerated in civilized communities. 

Restrictive housing laws, energetically enforced, ameli- 
orate bad conditions, but cannot cure them. 

Model housing enterprises of philanthropic or indus- 
trial origin neither do nor ought to supply the demand. 

How then is the problem to be solved ? 



CHAPTER V 
THE EXPERIENCE OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES 

I. IDENTITY OF THE HOUSING PROBLEM 

The fundamental trouble is the scarcity of whole- 
some houses of an acceptable standard at a low enough 
rental for the rank and file of unskilled wage earners. 
Thus stated, our housing problem is seen to be, not only 
similar to, but identical with the housing problem abroad. 

The evil conditions which create the housing problem 
are strikingly similar on both sides of the Atlantic. 
There, as here, are to be found dark rooms, unventilated 
rooms, insanitary toilets, houses without water or sewer 
connection, dirt, dilapidation, cellar dwellings, over- 
crowding and high rents. As is the case between the dif- 
ferent localities of our own country, such differences as 
exist are of emphasis rather than of kind. The evil 
of one- and two-room tenements is much more wide- 
spread in Europe than with us, whereas our wooden build- 
ings produce a fire risk and a degree of shabbiness and 
dilapidation which outdoes anything in Europe. 

In London at the time of the last census (" Census of 
England and Wales," 191 1, Vol. VIII, p. 662, Table 9), 
265,553 persons (6.2 per cent, of the population) were 
living in 138,226 one-room tenements, an average slightly 
under two persons to a room. In Glasgow (" Census of 
Scotland," 191 1, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 48, 49), 13.8 per 
cent, of the population (103,815 persons) lived in 32,- 
606 one-room tenements. Here the density was over 

133 



134 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

three in a room. In Dublin (" Census of Ireland/' 
191 1, General Report, p. 66, Table 50), 22.9 per cent, 
of the population (69,888 persons) were living in 21,- 
133 one-room tenements, again something over three in 
a room, and the fraction larger than in Glasgow. The 
British Board of Trade Report on the " Cost of Living 
in French Towns" (p. LII), tells us that in 1901 26.7 
per cent, of all tenements in Paris consisted of one 
room.^ The worst conditions of all in this respect, how- 
ever, obtained in Germany. In 1900 in Berlin no less 
than 48.6 per cent, of the population lived in one-room 
tenements, with an average number of inhabitants of 
3.69 {" Handworterhuch der Staatswissenschaften," 
191 1, pp. 881-883). The Berlin figures are subject to 
the qualification, however, that an unspecified number of 
these one-room tenements had a small, unheated, closet- 
like room attached (Nebengelass), and the German writ- 
ers insist that their rooms average much larger than those 
in England, which again are much larger than those in 
New York. Other German cities are as badly off as 
Berlin. Dr. Eugen Jaeger in ''Die Wohnungsfrage'' 
(1903), states that while 73.8 per cent, of Berlin's popu- 
lation lived in one or two rooms, 52.4 per cent, of 
Munich's people were so housed, 68.8 per cent, of Dres- 
den's and 74.2 per cent, of Breslau's. 

Energetic measures have been taken to improve these 
conditions, and were recent figures available, they doubt- 
less would be much more favorable. 

Strict comparison with overcrowding in this coun- 
try is impossible because of our unfortunate lack of com- 
parable statistics. In a general way we know that while 

1 Bergy, " Principles of Hygiene," p. 339, quotes J. Bertillon, 
" Rev. d'Hyg.," Vol. XXI, p. 588, to the effect that in Paris 369,000 
dwellings out of 942,000 had only one room. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 135 

we have some one-room tenements and a great many two- 
room tenements in our cities and many one- and two- 
room cabins in our rural districts, we have no such 
proportion as is shown by the foreign figures quoted. 
The only large-scale enumerations we have are those 
included in the Tenement House Census of Boston made 
by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor in 
1891. (See Chapter II, p. 50.) Of the 311,396 per- 
sons (71,665 families) with which it deals, % of i per 
cent, lived in one room and 5-!4 per cent, lived in two 
rooms. The average number of persons in the one-room 
tenements was, as in London, just under two. 

Aside from the Boston figures, we have only frag- 
ments. In 19 1 6 Bernard J. Newman, then director 
of the Philadelphia Housing Association, stated that 
there were about 3,500 families in Philadelphia living 
in one-room tenements. In the course of the survey 
of housing conditions in Baltimore made by Janet 
E. Kemp for the Charity Organization Society in 1907, 
it was found that of 1,157 families investigated, 15.1 
per cent, were living in one room. There was a density 
of from three to eight persons per room in nearly half 
of those apartments. 

The survey of forty-eight blocks in St. Louis made by 
Charlotte Rumbold in 1908 for the Civic League 
("Housing Conditions in St. Louis"), revealed four 
himdred and thirty-five one-room apartments. Percent- 
ages are not given, but it is stated that most of the apart- 
ments contained either two or three rooms. 

In Richmond in 19 13, of 616 families investigated, 2y 
lived in one room and 123 in two rooms ("Report on 
Housing and Living Conditions in the Neglected vSec- 
tions of Richmond," Gustavus A. Weber). 

Such instances could be multiplied, but perhaps enough 



136 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

has been said to prove that in the one point in which 
it is customary to make a comparison in our favor in the 
matter of housing conditions, we are by no means flaw- 
less, and such difference as exists is in degree only. 

The New York Tenement House Commissions of 1894 
and of 1900 both stated that the tenement house problem 
in New York was more acute than in any other city of 
the world. The 1905 report of the City and Suburban 
Homes Company of New York says : " New York's 
tenement problem is infinitely more urgent than Lon- 
don's." 

In short, we have no reason for complacency, ab- 
solutely or comparatively, in regard to our housing con- 
ditions, and if existing evils called for radical remedies 
on the other side of the water, so do they here. 

2. GOVERNMENT AID AND ITS FORMS 

The various sorts of effort to secure satisfactory hous- 
ing for working people in the United States have their 
counterpart in Europe — restrictive legislation in build- 
ing and health codes enforced by inspection, and model 
housing enterprises by philanthropists and employers. 
Little would be gained by a detailed study of such agen- 
cies, whose experiences do not differ greatly from our 
own except that they occurred earlier. The Metropoli- 
tan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the In- 
dustrial Classes of London dates from 1845, whereas 
the Boston Cooperative Building Company did not start 
till 1 87 1. The Peabody Trust Fund for building model 
tenements in London was established in 1862, while Al- 
fred T. White erected the first model tenements on this 
side of the water in 1877.^ 

^ Certain self-styled model tenements in New York of the fifties 
and sixties, such as the notorious Gotham Court, are purposely 
omitted, as there was nothing model about them except the name. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 137 

There as here, these various well-intentioned experi- 
ments were inaugurated with high*hopes that the way had 
been found to solve the housing problem. There as 
here, in spite of undoubted good accomplished, the net 
result was disappointment and disillusionment. They 
came to these conclusions a quarter of a century ahead 
of us and began the next cycle of experiments by invok- 
ing the aid of the State. 

However little it may flatter that type of national pride 
that insists on being always in the vanguard of progress, 
it is an obvious advantage to have had the experimenting 
done for us on a large scale, under a variety of condi- 
tions and over a long term of years. It ought to be com- 
paratively easy for us to avoid the pitfalls that some of 
the explorers fell into and make intelligent use of what 
has been found workable. 

Constructive housing legislation has developed along 
four main lines, of which three may be said to involve 
government aid of a positive sort and one of a negative. 

( I ) State or Municipal Housing 

We have, first, direct community action. The State, 
or more usually the city, buys land and builds houses for 
working people, either in the city itself or in garden sub- 
urbs. It may rent them and remain a landlord, it may 
turn them over to housing companies to manage, or it 
may sell them to the tenants on a system of long term 
easy payments. As was to be expected, this type of 
activity did not develop without exciting violent antago- 
nism, especially in England. In Germany it took root 
more easily. In Belgium and France it has never be- 
come domesticated, though the principle has been ac- 
cepted, and it will quite certainly be the method em- 
ployed in post }?ellum reconstruction. 



138 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

(2) Loans to NonrCommercial Housing Companies 

The second great way in which the State has helped 
has been by lending money at a low rate of interest to 
non-commercial housing companies whether of a philan- 
thropic character, or cooperative societies formed of the 
workingmen who are to live in the houses. 

This method has received its widest development in 
Germany and England, but has been extensively used in 
a number of countries. It is, for instance, the char- 
acteristic method of Italy. 

( 3 ) Loans to Individual Workingmen 

The third type has, so far, involved less money and 
produced fewer houses than either of the others, yet 
would probably appeal more quickly to most Americans. 
It is the loan of money on favorable conditions to the 
individual workingman who washes to build or acquire 
his own home. It may be done through the intermediary 
of a non-commercial loan company, as in Belgium and 
France, or directly, as under the surprisingly simple and 
efficient system of New Zealand. Yet, appealing as the 
type is, and useful as it is within certain limits, it must 
be admitted that it does not reach — cannot reach — the 
class that is in the most urgent need of help, — the un- 
skilled wage earners of large cities. 

(4) Tax Exemptions ^ 

Finally, there is the negative, yet often very important, 
aid rendered by tax exemptions on houses of approved 
standard and rental, or in the case of home-ownership, 
of approved standard and cost. The function of the 
type is auxiliary. 

1 Tax exemption, partial or complete, on all buildings is a fa- 
miliar subject of discussion and is being tried out in several of our 
cities and in Canada. (See the Final Report of the Committee on 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 139 

Some countries have developed only one or two, while 
some have all four of these forms of governmental aid. 
It has depended somewhat on a diversity of local needs 
but more on national habits of thought. It has been 
affected, too, by the accident of locality, for, other things 
being at all equal, the example of a near neighbor is 
most likely to be followed. 

Three nations stand out as pioneers in constructive 
housing legislation and accomplishment, — Great Britain, 
Belgium and Germany. This is not an accident. These 
distinctively industrial nations, whose cities grew with 
unexampled rapidity during the nineteenth century, were 
the first to feel the extreme pressure of housing prob- 
lems, and therefore the first to evolve remedies. From 
the experiments in legislation of these three countries, 
worked out simultaneously, and to some extent inde- 
pendently, have grown three schools of thought and prac- 
tice, to one or another of which it is possible to trace 
almost everything that has been done since in other 
European countries, in South America, Canada and Aus- 
tralasia. It will be found convenient to consider the 
various countries in three groups; the pioneers just re- 
ferred to ; other European and Latin-American countries, 
which followed closely in their footsteps; and the Brit- 
ish self-governing colonies, which have developed along 
rather different lines. 

The method followed will be to describe briefly the 
historical origin and content of the housing laws of a 
nation, and then to summarize as far as possible the re- 
sults of these laws in houses built, persons housed, and 
evidences of better health or other civic improvement. 

Taxation of the City of New York, 1916.) The special form here 
described has received little attention in the United States. Its sole 
aim is to stimulate the supply of cheap and good houses fpr work- 
ingmen by preferential treatment 



I40 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

3. THE PIONEERS 

(i) Great Britain 

What follows, when not otherwise specified, refers 
to England. Scotland is under the same housing laws. 
Her experience, both as to conditions and remedies, has 
been similar to that of England, but on a much smaller 
scale. All statistics, however, are kept separately, and 
as they are not always presented in exactly parallel form, 
an endeavor to combine them would cause unnecessary 
complication in a study which lays no claim to being ex- 
haustive. Ireland, on the other hand, is under a differ- 
ent dispensation, and presents conditions and methods 
so exceptional as to require separate, even though brief 
treatment. The example of Ireland is chiefly of inter- 
est to us as something to be avoided. 

A. History and Content of Legislation (England, 
Scotland and Wales) 

For the principles underlying modern British housing, 
we must go back to Lord Shaftesbury, the father of so 
much legislation in the interest of the working classes. 
It is an evidence of his far-seeing statesmanship that, 
after perceiving the need of factory laws regulating 
safety and sanitation, hours of work and the employ- 
ment of women and children, he realized that the lot of 
the laborer would still be intolerable if the Government 
did not secure him in the right to a decent home. In 
1 85 1 he procured the passage of the Laboring Classes 
Lodging Houses Act (lodging houses meaning rented 
dwellings), which embodied the fundamental principle 
of government responsibility for the housing of the peo- 
ple. It empowered the Public Works Loan Commission- 
ers, a national body which provides funds for river and 
harbor improvements, bridges, public buildings and other 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 141 

government undertakings, to lend money for the hous- 
ing of working people either to local authorities or to 
private associations. The idea of municipal housing was 
so far in advance of public opinion, however, that this 
part of the act remained a dead letter for some forty 
years. The permission for loans to associations was 
used earlier, but not on a large scale. The Peabody 
Trust, Hayle's Charity Estate Trustees and other socie- 
ties borrowed a few hundreds of thousands of pounds un- 
der the Act of 185 1. During this period, the real effort 
to improve housing conditions was, first, through en- 
dowed philanthropic foundations and, secondly, through 
restrictive legislation. Besides the Public Health Act of 
1875 (amended in 1890 and 1907), which gave consider- 
able power to the local authorities, two series of spe- 
cial housing laws, the Cross and Torrens Acts, were 
passed by Parliament. The Public Health Acts pre- 
scribed various matters of light, ventilation, sanitation 
and repairs with which we are familiar at home, while 
the Torrens Acts permitted the authorities to proceed 
against insanitary houses or small groups of houses, and 
the Cross Acts provided for the clearing of whole slum 
areas, the money to be provided from the Public Works 
Loan Commissioners, if the local authorities so desired 
and the Local Government Board approved. There was 
a provision which required new housing accommodations 
to be provided for the full number of persons dispossessed 
by a slum clearance scheme, unless for special reasons the 
Local Government Board remitted or reduced the obliga- 
tion. The Metropolitan Board of Works in London un- 
dertook and completed sixteen clearance schemes in- 
volving 41.73 acres of slums inhabited by 22,872 per- 
sons, between 1876 and 1889, when it was superseded 
by the London County Council. The policy of the 



142 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Metropolitan Board was, after buying the land, clear- 
ing off the old buildings, and replotting the streets, 
to sell the new building lots at much below cost to the 
large philanthropic trusts, such as the Peabody Founda- 
tion, which undertook to build more or less model tene- 
ments for the number of persons who had been dis- 
possessed. The resulting net cost to the taxpayers was 
something over £1,300,000. (U. S. Bureau of Labor 
Statistics, Bulletin 158, pp. 295, 296.) But in view of 
the extremely bad character of the areas, and the result- 
ing lowering of the death-rate, these transactions, re- 
garded as a health measure, cannot be considered espe- 
cially extravagant. The cost of later schemes has, how- 
ever, been substantially reduced. 

Meanwhile, outside of London, loans to the amount of 
£2,347,353 were sanctioned by the Local Government 
Board for similar undertakings by local authorities dur- 
ing the period between 1876 and 1890. Nor does this 
cover all that was done by municipalities. Many pre- 
ferred to work under local acts. Liverpool, for instance, 
began extensive slum-clearing and municipal housing 
schemes during the sixties under local legislation. 

No one was satisfied with the situation, and a Royal 
Commission on Housing of the Working Classes, of 
which the Prince of Wales was a member, was appointed 
in 1884. Royal commissions have played an impor- 
tant part in the development of British legislation, and 
this one was no exception. Its painstaking report, 
brought out the following year, presented ample evidence 
of conditions that needed remedy, and as a result of its 
recommendations, the same year saw the passage of the 
Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1885, which was 
only, however, a consolidation and harmonizing of ex- 
isting legislation. It was clearly seen that the procedures 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 143 

prescribed were too slow and cumbersome, and that loans 
of money were for too short periods and at too high a 
rate of interest to produce the desired results. Five 
years later came the epoch-making Housing of the Work- 
ing Classes Act of 1890, with which modern British con- 
structive housing activity really begins, and in 1909 its 
terms were made still more liberal in the Housing and 
Town Planning Act of that date. The main provisions 
of these two acts must be clearly understood. 

The Act of 1890 is in seven parts, of which the first 
three are the significant ones. In general, Part I is 
based on the Cross Acts, Part H on the Torrens Acts 
and Part HI on the Shaftesbury Act. In other words, 
Part I deals with large insanitary, or slum areas, with 
clearance schemes, and the obligation of re-housing the 
dispossessed population. Part II deals with single insani- 
tary houses, or small groups of them, and with obstruc- 
tive houses, which, although not in themselves objection- 
able, shut out light and air from others. Part III deals 
with new housing undertakings by local authorities, and 
the conditions of public loans for the financing of housing 
projects, whether carried on by local authorities, societies 
or individuals. 

The first two parts, except in so far as they deal with 
the re-housing of dispossessed tenants, are thus seen 
to be restrictive legislation. Part III and the re-housing 
sections of Parts I and II are constructive. Part III per- 
mits local authorities, whether urban or rural, subject 
to the approval of the Local Government Board, to ac- 
quire land and build either tenements or cottages for 
working people within their own boundaries or in ad- 
joining suburbs, with gardens, if desired, of not more 
than an acre to a cottage. 

Under the 1909 Act it becomes obligatory on local au- 



144 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

thorities to take action under the provisions of Part III 
whenever a shortage of working class houses exists, and 
any group of taxpayers or tenants may petition the 
Local Government Board, if the local authority fails to 
act on its own initiative, to establish the fact of a short- 
age. 

Local authorities may borrow money in the open 
market for housing schemes or may obtain loans from 
the Public Works Loan Commissioners. The Act of 
1909 makes the conditions very favorable, the maximum 
time of loans to local authorities being eighty years for 
land and sixty for buildings and the lowest rate of in- 
terest 33/2 per cent. In the case of societies, corpora- 
tions and individuals, the interest rates are the same as 
for local authorities, but the time of re-payment cannot 
exceed forty years. The amount loaned in the case of 
a public utility company may run up to two-thirds of 
the total value, but in the case of ordinary corporations 
and individuals, it may not exceed one-half. 

A word of explanation is in order here, for most 
American writers give the American meaning to the ex- 
pression '' public utilities," and even the Federal Bureau 
of Labor Statistics seems to have fallen into this error 
(see note on p. 290, Bulletin 158). In Great Britain a 
public utility company is a non-commercial, public-wel- 
fare, limited-dividend organization registered under the 
Provident Society Act. It includes philanthropic socie- 
ties and cooperative or co-partnership organizations of 
workingmen. 

The Act of 1909 consists of four parts. Part I reen- 
acts the statute of 1890 with amendments. Part II deals 
with town planning. It permits local authorities or own- 
ers of estates, subject to the approval of the Local Gov- 
ernment Board, to prepare plans for undeveloped areas. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 145 

These include the laying out of streets and open places, 
as well as residential, business and factory districts, and 
the limitation of the number of houses per acre. Its 
aim is to prevent congestion of population and inflation of 
land values in the future. Part III is purely restrictive. 
It establishes county housing committees and a nation- 
wide system of inspection by sanitary officers report- 
ing to the Local Government Board. Part IV contains 
schedules and other miscellany. 

These statutes are not easy reading. They are un- 
wieldy and by no means always clear. The work of con- 
solidation in the Act of 1890 left much to be desired. 
Minor amendments were passed in 1896, 1900 and 1903 
and very extensive ones in 1909. These acts exist only 
in the form of amendments, but fortunately for the 
student, Charles S. Allan has published the whole series 
(1890-1909) in a sort of consolidated form. 

Lord Bryce once said it was a proof of American 
genius for government that we get along as well as we 
do with such a system as ours. We might well return 
the compliment and say it is a proof of British genius 
for practical achievement that they can actually produce 
results under such a confused and confusing mass of 
fragments as their housing acts. That they do produce 
results, both extensive and desirable, we shall shortly 
proceed to demonstrate. 

There has been no new legislation since 1909 except 
two emergency measures passed in 19 14 after the out- 
break of the war to provide against anticipated unemploy- 
ment in the building trades. This did not occur, and they 
have not been used. The very extensive government un- 
dertakings for the housing of war workers which have 
been carried out during the war, have been done under 
the broad provisions of the Defense of the Realm Act, 



146 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

not under the housing acts. It is safe to say, however, 
that this work could never have been carried out without 
the housing experience and point of view acquired by 
the people and the Go\'ernment in pre-war days. 

It will be observed that British Housing of the Work- 
ing Classes Acts, on their constructive side, provide for 
what we have called the first two forms of government 
aid — direct housing and loans to societies. The in- 
dividuals to whom loans may be made under Part III are 
not individual workingmen, but employers or other large- 
scale builders. The needs of the individual workingman 
who wishes to acquire his own home (third form) are 
met, in so far as they are met at all, by the Small Dwel- 
lings Acquisition Act of 1899, which permits local au- 
thorities to borrow from the Public Works Loan Commis- 
sioners and lend to workingmen sums not exceeding £300, 
representing not more than four-fifths the market value 
of a house whose total value does not exceed £400. Re- 
payment must be made within thirty years. No very 
extensive use has been made of this act, as up to March 
31-, 19 17, only £412,639 had been lent under it. 
(Forty-second Annual Report Public Works Loan 
Board, p. 14, Appendix A.) But the use is evidently 
growing, or was before the war disturbed all previous 
tendencies, for about half of the total amount was lent 
between March 31, 19 13, and March 31, 19 16. 

The fourth form (tax exemption) is also found in 
Great Britain and has extensive application, as is indi- 
cated by a statement in the Forty-third Annual Report 
of the Local Government Board (Part II, p. XXXVII), 
quoting the report of the Commissioners of Inland Reve- 
nue for 19 1 3 to show that 5,607,275 dwelling houses were 
exempt from inhabited house duty. Evidently an exemp- 
tion of so broad a character cannot be dependent on com- 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 147 

pliance with high standards. Nor is it likely to be of 
such great economic importance as in certain countries 
where taxation is more burdensome. 

In the same sense in which the Act of 1890 was the 
result of the recommendations of the Royal Commis- 
sion of 1884, the Act of 1909 was the result of the recom- 
mendations of a Deputation of the National Housing 
Reform Council to the Government, i.e., to the ministry 
then in power, in 1906. This deputation represented a 
coalition between the trade unionists and what we 
should probably call in this country the " high brow " 
reformers. The combination proved a strong one which 
we should do well to emulate at home. The act is often 
known as the John Burns Act, as that prominent labor 
member of the ministry was its special sponsor. 

The town planning features came as a logical result of 
the garden city movement. In 1892 Ebenezer Howard 
had published his book " Garden Cities of To-morrow." 
Unlike most Utopias, this one had foundations of solid 
reality. In 1899 the Garden City Association was 
formed to carry out his ideas. In 1903 First Garden 
City, Ltd. was organized, and Letchworth was the result. 
Several large employers of labor built garden suburbs. 
Thus Port Sunlight had been created near Liverpool, 
Bournville near Birmingham and Earswick near York. 
The London County Council in 1898 decided to start 
building under Part III of the Housing Act and to get 
away from the old discredited types of block houses, 
such as the philanthropic foundations had erected, and 
from the dreary rows of commercially produced houses 
built under the by-laws. This was the beginning of 
Hampstead Garden Suburb, the forerunner of many other 
attractive developments. Ealing Tenants, Ltd. (1901), 
built the pioneer co-partnership village. The idea spread 



148 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

rapidly. In 1906 there were three co-partnership so- 
cieties. In 1909 there were twelve (J. S. Nettlefold, 
*' Practical Housing," Appendix C). There are now 
eighty cooperative societies of public utility affiliated with 
the British Garden Cities and Town Planning Associa- 
tion, though these are not necessarily all co-partnership. 
(See article by Ewart G. Culpin, Sec. International 
Garden Cities and Town Planning Association, in the 
Journal of the American Institute of Architects for April, 
19 1 7.) They have built some 8,000 cottages. In 19 13, 
twenty-five garden suburb schemes were started for the 
housing of 90,000 people, but w^ork was halted by the 
war, which has indeed suspended the whole private- 
initiative end of the housing movement in Great Britain. 
It must not be supposed that these developments have 
taken place without differences of opinion. During the 
first ten years of the twentieth century, a very lively 
controversy raged between the advocates of municipal 
housing, w^hose principal spokesman was Alderman W. 
Thompson of Richmond, author of the " Housing Hand- 
book " and '* Housing up to Date," and its opponents, 
led by Councilor J. S. Nettlefold of Birmingham, author 
of " A Housing Policy," " Practical Housing " and 
" Practical Town Planning." The net result of the dis- 
pute has been distinctly useful. It has kept up the in- 
terest and put each party on its mettle to demonstrate 
the superiority of its own formula. Neither side ob- 
jected to the principle of government loans. The dif- 
ference of opinion was on the relative merits of the first 
and second form of government aid, or perhaps it would 
be more accurate to say it centered on the first. For the 
advocates of municipal building were not decrying build- 
ing by private societies, only arguing against the possibil- 
ity of their handling the great problem alone, while the 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 149 

opposition objected in toto to municipal housing, re- 
garding it as an example of '* the unsound socialism that 
has of late years been gradually gathering force in this 
country" (Nettlefold, *' Practical Housing," p. 131). 

The passage of the compulsory municipal housing pro- 
vision in the Act of 1909, its rigorous enforcement by the 
Local Government Board, and the phenomenal increase 
in the housing activities of local authorities during the 
years preceding the war, indicate quite clearly on which 
side lay the bulk of public opinion. But if the victory 
has been with the advocates of municipal building, Coun- 
cilor Nettlefold has done a real service by demonstrat- 
ing in Birmingham how much could be accomplished by 
patient work of local authorities under Part II of the 
Act of 1890, by forcing owners of insanitary houses to 
repair or demolish them at their own expense, instead of 
burdening the tax payers by wholesale purchase and 
rebuilding schemes under Part I. His constant attacks 
have also doubtless had weight in bringing about a closer 
balance between the debit and credit sides of mtmicipal 
housing accounts in later years. Moreover, Councilor 
Nettlefold and his associates, realizing that the repair of 
old houses was not in itself enough, in their desire to 
demonstrate the superiority of private initiative over 
municipal, have put a great deal of energy into the co- 
partnership movement, of which Henry Vivian, M. P., 
has been an active leader. The municipal housing advo- 
cates yield to none in their enthusiasm over co-partner- 
ship, but it has undoubtedly been an advantage to have a 
group of able and energetic people concentrate their at- 
tention on making co-partnership a success. 

It was a favorite argument of the opponents of muni- 
cipal housing in England, as it is of their compeers in 
the United States, that it would stifle private initiative in 



150 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

housing. The effect seems to have been precisely the con- 

trar}\ Thompson says (** Housing up to Date," p. 11) : 
" It is a remarkable fact that so far from killing private 
enterprise, the threat to build municipal dwellings seems 
at once to stimulate apathetic private individuals and 
companies and to bring out the best that is in them. All 
the best housing schemes by private or cooperative ef- 
fort are in or near towns that have been pioneers of their 
class in building municipal dwellings." He follows this 
statement with a number of examples. Bearing out his 
assertions, is the indisputable fact of the large increase 
in the amount of loans to societies by the Public Works 
Loan Board in the years between 1910 and 191 5 when 
municipal building was also at its height. 

Thompson's encyclopedic books are a mine of informa- 
tion and are written with a serenity and good temper 
which the reader misses in the controversial works of 
Xettlefold. For which reason, perhaps, one may be par- 
doned a philosophic smile on learning that, after all his 
scorn of ** subsidized " municipal housing schemes, the 
Councilor's special co-partnership society operating on 
the outskirts of Birmingham has received assistance from 
the rates in order to make both ends meet! 

Town planning is the one part of the British program 
on which all parties seem to be agreed. 

B. Results of Legislation (England and Wales) 

A law on the statute books means nothing except in 
so far as it is used. To what extent has the construc- 
tive housing legislation of Great Britain been translated 
into action? How much government money has been 
invested in housing? How many houses have been built, 
directly or indirectly, as the result of this expenditure? 
How may people have been housed through such activ- 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 151 

ity? As has already been stated, real activity began 
with 1890 and was vastly increased after 1909. The 
Report of the Land Enquiry Committee (1913-1914) 
states that private enterprise in the past has provided 
about 99 per cent, of working class dwellings, from which 
the inference seems to be that public enterprise has pro- 
duced about I per cent. But they also say that local 
authorities had provided only about % of i per cent, of 
existing working class dwellings. Perhaps the other % 
of I per cent, refers to housing by societies. 

In the Forty-third Annual Report of the Local Govern- 
ment Board (1913-1914, Part II, p. XXXVI), we find 
the following general statement of policy: " We recog- 
nize that in England and Wales private enterprise has 
always been, and, so far as can be foreseen, will con- 
tinue to be the main source of the provision of houses for 
the working classes. It is only in those places where 
private enterprise has failed to provide them for a cer- 
tain class of workmen, that the local authority is required 
to step in." Nevertheless, the Local Government Board 
recommended action along these lines to four hundred 
of the eighteen hundred local authorities reporting to it. 

Comprehensive statistics do not exist. We can, how- 
ever, by assembling figures from several sources, arrive 
at fairly serviceable estimates. 

First, in regard to public money expended. 

From the Forty-second Annual Report of the Public 
Works Loan Board (Appendix A, p. 14), we derive the 
following : 

Loans Made by the Public Works Loan Commissioners for 
Working Class Dwellings in England 

Total loaned to local authorities £4,181,510 

Total loaned to societies and individuals 3,385,078 



152 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Total loaned under the Small Dwellings Acquisi- 
tion Act £ 412,629 



Total to March 31, 1917 £7,979,217 

But this by no means tells the whole stor>\ The first 
two totals refer only to sums loaned under Part III of 
the Housing of the Working Classes Act. The sums 
loaned under Part I and Part II cannot be given, for 
there is no way of telling what part of them was for 
re-housing and what part for slum clearance. ^lore- 
over, this table includes only what was borrow^ed from 
the Public Works Loan Commissioners. The very ex- 
tensive building activities of the London County Council, 
which was landlord to nearly 58,000 people at last ac- 
counts, are w^holly apart from these figures, for the Lon- 
don County Council enjoys unique privileges of home rule 
and raises money by the issue of consolidated stock. 
Nor have other municipalities always found it most ad- 
vantageous to borrow from the Public Works Loan 
Board. Thompson says ("Housing up to Date," p. 
248) that up to 1907 English municipalities had bor- 
rowed about four and a half million pounds for slum 
buying and about the same sum for housing, '* mostly 
in the open market." Again, a number of cities, notably 
Liverpool, have preferred to work under local acts. 

Altogether, the writer believes it would be conserva- 
tive to estimate the amount of money invested by the 
national Government and local authorities in building 
houses for English workingmen, up to the outbreak of 
the present war, at £15,000,000. What the national Gov- 
ernment has spent since that time for the housing of war 
workers may be several times that amount, but as no offi- 
cial figures have been given out, this is sheer guess- 
work. 



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154 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

The preceding table compiled from the Forty-fifth and 
Forty-sixth Annual Reports of the Local Government 
Board gives an idea of the activities of local authorities 
under Part III of the Act of 1890, since the passage of the 
1909 Act, the loans being for the purchase of land and 
erection of houses. 

This table clearly shows the rapid increase in housing 
by local authorities after the law of 1909 went into 
effect until checked by the war. Housing by rural au- 
thorities may be said to date from 1909, for only seven 
had received loans, all, with one exception, for small 
amounts, before that date. 

Previous to 19 10, the tables are less satisfactory, as 
they do not give the number of houses to be erected. 
The total of the loans sanctioned during the twenty- 
year period 1890-19 10 was about two-thirds the total 
of the 1910-1917 period. The high-water mark of the 
earlier period had been reached from 190x3-1902, during 
which time the borrowing rate approximated that of 19 13. 
From this on it had declined. 

In estimating the number of dwellings built by the 
local authorities referred to in the reports of the Local 
Government Board previous to 19 10, we may assume, 
since the cost of building was increasing all the time, that 
it was something more than two-thirds of the 13,477 
built or authorized since that date. We can check this 
estimate, for Thompson's '' Housing Up to Date '' con- 
tains several scattered figures which we may bring to- 
gether. They refer only to the period before 1907. 
Thus, he gives the number of block (barrack tenement) 
apartments owned by local authorities outside of London 
as 1,003, ^^^ number of tenement apartments (in houses 
accommodating from three to six families) as 2,507, the 
number of apartments in cottage flats (two- family 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 155 

houses), as 2,004, and the number of cottages as 3,830, a 
total of 9,344 dwelHngs. The years between 1907 and 
19 10 were not very active ones, but assuming that the 
loans authorized for those years represented about the 
same number of dwellings as the same amount of money 
in the immediately succeeding years, about 1,200 houses 
must have been added. Remembering that Thompson 
probably included cities that built under private acts, 
we come to something approximating the figure arrived 
at by the first method. In other words, municipalities 
outside of London and apart from those working under 
private acts, had probably provided something between 
9,000 and 10,000 dwelHngs before the 1909 law went 
into operation. 

Annual reports of the London County Council show 
that up to May 31, 19 15, it had constructed 3,402 cot- 
tages, 6,420 apartments and 1,872 cubicles in lodging 
houses, a total of 9,822 lettings, containing 28,252 rooms, 
inhabited by 57,942 persons. 

Up to December 31, 191 1 (U. S. Bureau Labor Statis- 
tics, Bulletin 158, p. 305), other local authorities of Lon- 
don had acquired or erected working-class tenements con- 
taining 8,321 rooms, presumably accommodating about 
16,000 people. According to the same authority, Liver- 
pool, up to 1912, had built 2,y2y dwellings, containing a 
population of 10,099. About four-fifths of this work is 
said to have been done under local acts. 

Thompson tells us in regard to the work of private 
societies up to 1907 ("Housing Up to Date,'* p. 143), 
that ten philanthropic societies in London had built ac- 
commodations for 125,000 persons and 413 cooperative 
societies had constructed 46,707 houses. This is apart 
from the activities of 2,000 so-called Building Societies, 
with over 600,000 members, which do not build, but lend 



156 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

money, after the manner of our Building and Loan As- 
sociations. 

Assembling the figures, remembering that some are 
merely approximate, and that others are not up to date, 
we have something like this : 

Dwellings Constructed and Persons Housed in England as a Result 
of Constructive Housing Legislation. 

Dwellings Number of 

Agency Number of Persons 

London County Council (to 1915) 9,822 57,942 

Other London authorities (to 191 1) 

(estimated) 3,ooo. . (estimated) 16,000 

Local Authorities under Part III, Act 

1890 (1910-1917) 13,477. . (estimated) 67,400 

Local authorities under Part III, Act 

1890 (1891-1910) (estimated) 9,500. . (estimated) 47,500 

Liverpool under private acts (to 1912) 

(estimated) 2,180. . (estimated) 8,080 

Other cities under private acts (esti- 
mated) 2,000. . (estimated) 10,000 



Total by local authorities 39,979 206,922 

10 London Philanthropic Societies (to 

1907) (estimated) 25,000 125,000 

413 Cooperative Societies (to 1907) ... 46,707. . (estimated) 280,000 

80 Cooperative Societies (mostly co- 
partnership, all recent) 8,000. . (estimated) 40,000 



Total by Societies 79,707 395,ooo 

Under Small Dwellings Acquisition Act 

(estimated) 1,500. . (estimated) 7,500 



Totals (estimated) 121,186. . (estimated) 609,422 

The philanthropic societies have not been active since 
1907, but the cooperative societies have been, and the 
eighty referred to in Mr. Culpin's article, already cited, 
include only those affiliated with the British Garden Cities 
and Town Planning Association. The Public Works 
Loan Commissioners lent more money to societies be- 
tween 19 10 and 1 91 3 than in the twenty years previous. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 157 

On the other hand, some of the early philanthropic and 
cooperative societies may have received no public loans. 
Balancing these two unknown quantities against each 
other, we are safe in saying that more than half a million 
people in England owe their comfortable homes to con- 
structive housing legislation, and many more live in the 
garden cities erected by the national Government during 
the last three years for war workers. 

The standard observed in these developments has been 
a progressive one. The big block tenements put up in 
earlier years by philanthropic societies and municipal au- 
thorities, left much to be desired, and the two-room apart- 
ment was altogether too frequent in them. Recent 
garden city and garden suburb developments, on the other 
hand, afford the nearest approach to ideal conditions to be 
found anywhere in the world. 

The results of better housing, as shown in lower death- 
rates and higher physical development, are very striking. 
In the year ending March, 19 12, the death-rate in the 
London County Council's dwellings was 8.5 per thou- 
sand, while for the whole of London, in 191 1, it was 
15 per thousand. Speaking of a somewhat earlier period, 
Thompson says (" Housing Up to Date," p. 76), "The 
death-rate in the model dwellings on cleared slum areas 
is under 13 per 1,000, or one-third of what it was in 
the old slums before clearance, viz., 40 per 1,000." At 
the time of which Thompson was writing the general 
death-rate in London was 15.6 (p. 75). The East End 
Dwellings Company of London in 1905 had a death-rate 
of 1 1.5 per 1,000 (p. 146). During the three years pre- 
ceding December 31, 1906, the birth-rate among the 9,668 
tenants of the Guinness Trust Estate had averaged 43.3 
per 1,000 and the death-rate 12.5 per 1,000, and tenants 



158 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

were limited to those with incomes under 25 shillings a 
week (p. 147). In 1905, the death-rate among the 19,- 
615 tenants of the Peabody Foundation was 13 per 1,000 
and among the 5,000 tenants of the Metropolitan Associa- 
tion for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrial 
Classes, 13.38 per 1,000. 

In Manchester in the Oldham Road area, where the 
death-rate during the period 1 887-1 889 had been 49.2 per 
1,000, after a slum clearance and rehousing scheme had 
been carried out, it had fallen to 29,7 (Thompson, 
*' Housing Handbook," p. 48). In the Pollard Street 
area, the fall had been from 51.4 to 32.7. 

In Port Sunlight during the seven years previous to 
1907 the death-rate averaged only 9.8 per 1,000. In 
Bournville during the four years ending with 1905 the 
death-rate was 7.3 per 1,000, while that of the urban 
district to which it belonged was 10.5 and the general 
death-rate of England and Wales was 15.7. For the 
five years ending in 19 14, the death-rate in Bournville was 
only 4.9 per 1,000, while that of Birmingham was 14.4 
and that of England and Wales 13.8. During the same 
period the infant mortality per 1,000 live births was 40.6 
for Bournville, 125.4 for Birmingham, and 108.6 for 
England and Wales. -^ 

These figures and others like them make out a pretty 
clear case for the connection between health and housing, 
but as it is sometimes claimed that part of the decrease 
in the death-rate is due to the better class of tenants that 
move into the new houses, the experience of Liverpool 
is extraordinarily valuable. For, years ago the policy 
was adopted of giving the dispossessed tenants the first 
choice when the city cleared out slum areas and put up 

1 Fifth Annual Report, Massachusetts Homestead Commission, 
p. 28. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 159 

new houses. Two thousand one hundred and seventy- 
one out of 2,y2y new dwellings were reserved for old 
tenants. On one area 94 per cent, of the former resi- 
dents were installed in the new buildings. Here we have, 
then, for all practical purposes, the identical group of 
people. The only new factor is the new house. Let 
the Local Government Board (Forty-second Annual Re- 
port, Part II, pp. XXII, XXIII) tell the story: "In 
1902 . . . when these areas were condemned, the death- 
rate within them ranged from 40 to 60 per 1,000, 
and the incidence of phthisis resulted in an annual death- 
rate of approximately 4 per 1,000. . . . The medi- 
cal officer of health points out that under the new con- 
ditions the general death-rate has fallen by more than 
one-half, and the average annual death-rate from phthisis 
in the corporation tenements during the four years 1909 
to 19 12 fell to 1.9 per 1,000." Nor is health the only 
matter in which improvement can be demonstrated. 
" The medical officer of health points out that there has 
been a marked improvement in the habits and cleanliness 
of the people who formerly inhabited these dwellings, as 
indicated by the external and internal appearance of the 
houses. The improvement is particularly noticeable in 
the children, and at night the districts are quiet and or- 
derly." (Ibid.) Improvement in morals, or at least in 
orderly conduct, is indicated by the decreased number of 
arrests in the several districts, as the head constable points 
out. In the Hornby Street area in 1901 there were 170 
arrests, in 19 12 there were 52. The old houses had 
been torn down and new ones erected during the in- 
terval. In the Adlington Street area in 1894 under the 
old conditions there were 202 arrests. In 19 12 there 
were only 2. 

We have still to refer to the statistics relating to the 



i6o Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

development of children. Thompson tells us (" Housing 
up to Date," p. 3) that the boys at the Bournville school 
averaged four inches taller than the Birmingham boys of 
the same age and their chest measure three inches greater. 
But the most complete and interesting set of figures are 
those furnished by Dr. Arkle's studies of Port Sunlight 
boys as compared with those of the same age in Liver- 
pool schools. The table is quoted in full by Richard B. 
Watrous in " Personal Observations of Some Housing 
Developments in Europe," Journal of the American In- 
stitute of Architects, July, 19 14. Mr. Watrous quotes 
from an address by Mr. Vivian : 

" Dr. Arkle's report to the Liverpool education com- 
mittee contained a comparison between the physique of 
children attending different classes of schools in the city 
and the schools at the industrial village of Port Sun- 
light. Selecting from the figures he presented, those re- 
lating to the children attending Class B schools in Liver- 
pool, this being the class most nearly comparable with 
Port Sunlight, the position is as follows : 





Boys aged 7 


Boys aged 1 1 


Boys aged 14 




11 


II 


II 


II 
II 


11 




Liverpool schools (B) . 
Port Sunlight schools . 


44.3 
47.0 


43.0 

50.5 


51.8 
57.0 


59.0 

79.5 


56.2 
62.2 


75.8 
108.0 


Difference 


2.7 


7-5 


6.2 


20.5 


6.0 


32.21 



Thompson (*' Housing up to Date," p. 4) gives these 
figures as well as those for the other two grades of Coun- 
cil schools in Liverpool (A and C) and the higher grade 

1 Given in Mr. Watrous' table as 33.8, but obviously an error, as 
the other figures have been verified. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries i6i 

schools frequented by the children of the well-to-do. It 
is interesting to note that not only do the Port Sunlight 
children surpass those of the same economic group in 
Liverpool at every age in height and weight by a substan- 
tial margin, and of course even more so the children of 
the casual labor group in the (C) schools, but they are 
also ahead of the children in the (A) schools, though to 
a lesser degree. Moreover while they start at seven 
years on a par with the children of the well-to-do in the 
higher grade schools (exactly the same in height and 
only a pound ahead in weight), at eleven years the Port 
Sunlight children have distanced the most favored city 
class and at fourteen their lead is still greater, amounting 
in the matter of weight to 13^ pounds. These figures 
certainly tend to prove that the much discussed difference 
in physique between the upper and lower classes in Eng- 
land is not a matter of heredity, but of environment. 

To show even more definitely the connection between 
physical development and overcrowding, we have the 
Glasgow figures relating to 72,857 school children be- 
tween five and eighteen years old, classified according 
to number of rooms occupied by their families. These 
statistics appeared in a Blue Book issued by the Scotch 
Education Department in 1907. The returns were made 
by the teachers. Thompson in " Housing Up to Date," 
p. 4, gives the following summary of all ages : 

One-Room Apartments Two-Room Apartments 

Av. Height Av. Weight Av. Height Av. Weight 

Boys , 46.6 52.6 48.1 56.1 

Girls 46.3 51.S 47.8 54-8 

Three-Room Apartments Four-Room Apartments 

Av. Height Av. Weight Av. Height Av. Weight 

Boys So.o 60.6 51.3 64.3 

Girls 49.6 59.1 51-6 65.5 



1 62 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

The difference of about five inches in height and 
twelve to fourteen pounds in weight between the children 
living in one room and those living in four rooms is very 
striking, as is also the successive grades of development 
corresponding to the number of rooms. 

How the British themselves regard the urgency of the 
housing problem and the need of government help in 
solving it may be gathered from a study of the various 
after-the-war reconstruction programs that are being dis- 
cussed. Mr. Ackerman, in his article " What is a 
House? " in the December, 1917, number of the Journal 
of the American Institute of Architects, summarizes two 
of them. The 19 16 National Congress on Home Prob- 
lems after the War, at the conser\^ative extreme, recom- 
mends that the Government set aside not less than 
£20,000,000 for advances to local authorities and other 
agencies to provide houses for the working classes. 
Most housing reformers ask for the construction of 500,- 
000 cottages. While the Labor Program, at the other 
extreme, asks the Government to build, through the 
local authorities, during the four years after the war, 
1,000,000 working-class dwellings and to secure priority 
for the materials needed. British public opinion seems 
to be unanimous that when the war has been won, the 
returning soldiers will have earned the right to real 
homes and nothing less must be offered to them. 

C. Ireland 

Ireland, as said before, has a set of housing laws and 
a housing policy all her own. It is not for an outsider 
to judge how far the abnormal and distressing conditions 
in Ireland justified an application of wholesale poor- 
relief to her housing problem. The point made is that 
both the condition and the remedy are abnormal and 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 163 

that the Irish experience is in no sense typical of con- 
structive housing legislation. 

Urban housing in Ireland comes under the general 
acts of 1890 and 1909. Not much had been done until 
recently. But in 19 16 Lord Aberdeen obtained a loan 
in the United States, said to be of $5,000,000, for slum 
clearance and housing in Dublin. 

The great housing activity in Ireland has centered in 
the erection and leasing of small rural cottages. For 
this purpose Pariiament in 1906 and 191 1 provided a 
fund totaling £5,250,000, from which loans are made 
to local authorities. Three and a quarter per cent, for 
68^ years cancels the indebtedness, so the interest rate 
is seen to be extremely low. But there are also two sub- 
sidies from the imperial exchequer to aid in the repay- 
ment of these loans, one of which pays 16 per cent, and 
the other 20 per cent, of the annual charges. The rent 
(about one shilling, one penny, weekly) covers about 40 
per cent, of these charges, which leaves 24 per cent, for 
the local rate payers, besides, presumably, repairs and 
other forms of up-keep. 

It is claimed that these subsidies have not depressed 
wages, which have, on the contrary, risen steadily. This 
phenomenon is accounted for by the greater indepen- 
dence of the agricultural laborer on escaping from the 
" tied " cottage, or cottage owned by the landlord for 
whom he worked. 

Up to March 31, 19 13, 41,852 of these cottages had 
been built in Ireland, and 2,538 were under construction. 
The average cost of cottage and land was £170, of which 
£130 was for the house. 

It may be the political sins of the British Government 
towards Ireland in the past and the social sins of Irish 
landlords to their tenants were such as to make this form 



164 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

of atonement just and equitable, as well as necessary. 
One may at least applaud the generous spirit which 
prompted it. But we may safely say that this experience 
affords no example which we in the United States could 
wish to follow. 

(2) Belgium 
A. Histor}^ and Content of Legislation 

The Belgians have the honor of having produced the 
earliest effective constructive housing law, that of 1889, 
and up to the present time, one of the best. It has also 
been one of the most influential, having been widely ob- 
served and copied in continental Europe. Previous to 
that time there had been a certain amount of activity on 
the part of philanthropic organizations and employers 
of labor. Seven societies for the construction of work- 
men's houses were founded between 1861 and 1868 
at Verviers, Liege, Antwerp, Brussels and Tournai. 
Through the acts of 1867 and 1871, they enjoyed the 
privilege of limited liability and a considerable degree of 
tax exemption. They had expended over eight million 
francs in workmen's houses before 1889. 

There had been a Royal Commission on Labor in 1886 
(the story runs a close parallel to English developments), 
which included housing in its investigations and recom- 
mendations. The result was the Act of August 9, 1889, 
its passage being largely due to the initiative of Mr. Beer- 
naert. Minister of Finance. That act was amended in 
1892, 1893 and 1897, but none of the changes made were 
radical. 

(a) The central feature of this law is the liberation 
of the deposits of the General Savings Bank and Pension 
Fund {Caisse generale d'epargne et de retraite) for use 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 165 

as loans to build workingmen's dwellings. This pro- 
vision was copied directly in the French act of 1894 and 
may have suggested the German plan, which proved so 
fruitful, of using the immense funds of the Invalidity 
and Old Age Insurance Institutes. Or, rather, the recom- 
mendation of this provision by the Royal Commission of 
1886 may have suggested it, for the German invalidity 
and old age insurance law, which incidentally prescribed 
the manner in which the institutes might invest their 
funds, was actually passed some six weeks earlier than 
the Belgian housing law. 

At first the Savings Bank, which is a government su- 
pervised and semi-official institution, was only permitted 
to lend 5 per cent, of its deposits for the purposes of the 
act, but when this limit was reached in 1901, it was raised 
to 7^4 per cent. 

The Savings Bank may lend its funds for housing 
purposes to municipalities, to charitable organizations, 
to housing companies and to individual workingmen 
through the medium of non-commercial loan associations. 

Municipal housing has never taken root in Belgium. 
Nothing at all was done with the first provision until 
1905, and even after that, only sparing, although progres- 
sively increasing, use was made of it. The second pro- 
vision has been of even less importance, only a few 
hundred thousand francs having been borrowed under it. 
The housing companies have been fairly active, but more 
than nineteen twentieths of the work done has been under 
the fourth provision. This, then, has been the charac- 
teristically Belgian^ method of housing reform — the 
furnishing of capital at a low rate of interest, with easy 
terms of repayment, through the medium of a loan asso- 
ciation, to the individual workingman. 

The workingman may borrow 5,000 francs for a 



1 66 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

house and land, the combined value of which does not ex- 
ceed 5,500 francs, of which the land must not represent 
more than 1,500 francs. Moreover, he may not borrow 
more than 90 per cent, of the total required. These 
maximum amounts were later raised to 6,000 and 6,500 
francs for Brussels, Gand, Liege and Antwerp, and ef- 
forts had been made for some years previous to the war 
to raise it to 10,000 francs. 

The workingman may borrow for periods ranging 
from ten to twenty-five years, depending partly on his 
choice, but also somewhat on his age. His payments may 
be monthly, bi-weekly or weekly. 

The workingman benefited may be either an industrial 
or an agricultural worker. EifTorts had been on foot for 
some years previous to the war to amend the law so as 
to include in its benefits the lower paid grades of office 
and mercantile workers. 

The loan association, besides submitting to a number 
of other regulations, was required to prove its non-com- 
mercial character by limiting its dividends to 3 per 
cent. Later this was increased to 3^ per cent, and in 
certain cases of societies with paid up capital, to 4 per 
cent. It might be either a joint stock or a cooperative 
society. The great majority of them have been of the 
joint stock type. 

The loan association borrows from the bank at a rate 
that has varied from 2% to 3 per cent., lending to the 
workingman at from 35^ to 4 per cent. The housing 
company borrows at 3 to 3 >4 per cent. 

(b) On the administrative side, the important fea- 
ture of the Belgian law is the creation of local housing 
committees (Comites de patronage) in every adminis- 
trative district (arrondissement) . There are fifty-six 
of these committees composed of from five to eighteen 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 167 

members, part of whom are appointed by the provincial 
council and part by royal decree. The appointees are 
persons of local prominence, preference being given to 
doctors, lawyers, magistrates, architects, engineers, large 
employers, workingmen, and officers of housing com- 
panies or savings banks. They are appointed for three 
years and serve without pay. Small government appro- 
priations are made, however, for their running expenses. 
They report yearly to a national body, the Conseil su- 
perieur d'hygiene puUique. They have educational, ad- 
visory and even some administrative functions. They 
stimulate public interest in housing, assist and advise lim- 
ited dividend housing companies, loan associations and 
individual workingmen, give out the certificates entitling 
to tax exemption, help secure loans for would-be home 
owners, and watch over the enforcement of restrictive 
laws for the sanitary supervision of houses. The Brus- 
sels committee had a notable housing survey made under 
the architect, M. Hellemans, as a result of which the 
city embarked on a large scheme for slum clearance and 
the building of model tenements. 

The comites de patronage have been copied in French 
and Italian legislation and evidently suggested the county 
housing committees provided for in Part III of the 
British Act of 1909. 

(c) One of the most interesting features of the Bel- 
gian law is the insurance plan devised by M. Leon Ma- 
hillon, formerly managing director of the General Sav- 
ings Bank. A workingman borrowing to build a home 
takes out a policy on his life for the unpaid portion of 
his loan. As this is a sum which diminishes from year 
to year till it reaches zero, it can be covered by a very 
small annual premium added to his regular payments. 
Should he die before the payments are completed, the 



1 68 Housing of the Utiskilled Wage Earner 

balance of the debt is canceled by the policy and his 
widow or other heir receives the house unincumbered. 
The savings bank underwrites this insurance itself. 
The short-sighted hostility of the intermediary companies 
prevented this feature from being made compulsory, but 
owing to the policy of the bank in giving preferential in- 
terest rates to those taking out insurance, about 85 per 
cent, of the borrowers are actually so protected. 

The insurance feature of the Belgian law has been 
very widely copied. 

(d) Tax exemptions, amounting to about 50 per cent., 
are provided for workingmen's houses which obtain the 
certificate of their comite de patronage. 

It is thus seen that Belgium has all four forms of gov- 
ernment aid in housing, though it is the third form which 
has been most extensively developed. 

B. Results of Legislation 

Up to 19 1 3 the General Savings Bank had advanced 
159,012,589 francs to the various types of societies, and 
approximately 57,300 dwellings had been built in conse- 
quence, the great majority of them owned by the work- 
ingmen who lived in them. As Belgian families are large, 
this must have meant the housing of about 300,000 people. 

Of the dwellings just mentioned, 54,632 were built 
through loan associations, leaving only 2,166 cottages 
and 506 apartments in multiple dwellings to show for the 
activities of the housing companies. 

On January i, 19 13, there were 176 associations hav- 
ing loan contracts with the bank of which 167 were joint 
stock and nine cooperative. All of the cooperative and 
125 of the joint stock organizations were loan companies, 
only 42 being housing companies. 



» 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 169 



Apparently this governmental assistance has not had 
the effect of discouraging private initiative, for thirty- 
eight housing companies (societes d' habitations a bon 
marche) which have received no loans from the General 
Savings Bank, are listed, which have invested over 65,- 
000,000 francs in workingmen's dwellings. More than 
two-thirds of this sum represents industrial housing en- 
terprises by employers. 

The Superior Council of Hygiene in its report for 
191 1, announcing the reports of the local committees, 
states that great progress has been made in Belgium in 
housing for workingmen since the law of 1889 went into 
effect. Under the supervision of the committees, the 
insanitary old houses were fast disappearing and the new 
houses were becoming standardized to include a separate 
kitchen, basement, and bath, as well as the usual living- 
rooms. 

The criticism usually made of Belgian housing activi- 
ties is that it is the higher grade of workingman who is 
benefited. This is almost inevitably the case when ef- 
fort has been predominently directed along the third line 
of government aid. The reply of its advocates is that 
the lower paid worker moves into the house vacated by 
the high grade man who builds a new one. 

The foregoing naturally deals with ante-bellum con- 
ditions. It is understood that the Belgian Government 
has far-reaching plans for reconstruction after the war, 
and that groups of Belgian architects have been study- 
ing town planning in England. 

(Minister e de I'interieur, Annuaire statistique de la 
Belgique et du Congo beige, 44me Annee, 19 13, Brussels, 
1914, pp. 245-250. 

Ninth International Housing Congress, Vienna, 1910, 



170 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Part I. Les habitations ouvrieres en Belgique, progres, 
1^04-igo^, Jean Dubois and Alfred Van Melle. 

Bulletin 158, U. S. Bureau Labor Statistics, Belgium, 

PP- 95-1 1 5-) 

(3) Germany 
A. History and Content of Legislation 

It is difficult, within the limits of a rapid survey, to 
give a clear idea of housing legislation and its results in 
Germany, for it is the story of a great number of local 
enterprises operated under a mass of widely divergent 
state laws. Not only do the laws of the different states 
vary greatly, but German cities have a degree of home 
rule not generally understood in this country, and do 
many things on their own initiative for which our cities 
would require an act of legislature if not a constitutional 
amendment. 

The other group of measures which have done so 
much in Germany for the welfare of the working peo- 
ple, the various forms of social insurance, were part of 
the Bismarck program, launched in the eighties, and being 
embodied at once in imperial legislation, may be said 
to radiate from the center outward. Housing reform, 
on the other hand, has moved from the circumference 
inward. Beginning with the experiments of individual 
cities, the several states were gradually interested and 
finally the Imperial Government, but the really national 
housing law, much discussed and advocated, has yet to 
be enacted. 

The earliest German housing company dates from 
1 84 1, but little of importance was done until the collection 
and publication of the statistics of overcrowding in the 
eighties. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 171 

room overcrowding had assumed almost unbelievable 
proportions. The connection between health and hous- 
ing was painfully evident in the mortality figures pre- 
sented. In Berlin, the people living in one-room ^ tene- 
ments had the appalling death-rate of 163.5 per 1,000. 
The rate for those living in two rooms was 22.5, for 
those in three rooms 7.5, while for those living in four 
or more rooms, it was only 5.4. ("Municipal Govern- 
ment in Continental Europe," Albert Shaw, 1895, pp. 

355-361.) 

As a result of these revelations, a new building law 
was adopted for Berlin (1898), prescribing that only 
two-thirds of the area of a lot could be built on, fixing 
the cubic air space per person and providing for care- 
ful sanitary inspection. But at the same time the con- 
structive side was provided for by an elaborate system of 
government loans and direct building operations. 

The most important single source of funds is furnished 
by the Old Age and Invalidity Insurance Institutes (see 
Belgium, p. 165). Authority is found in the law of 
1889, which was much amplified in 1899, the former per- 
mitting one- fourth of their funds to be used for housing 
loans, and the latter increasing the proportion, under 
certain conditions, to one-half. 

The next most important sources of capital are the im- 
perial and state housing funds. The Imperial Govern- 
ment between 1901 and 1908 established a housing fund 
of some 33,000,000 marks from which to make loans to 
societies. Most of the organizations receiving loans 
were cooperative housing companies composed of gov- 
ernment employees (Beamten-Baugenossenschaften), 

1 These were absolutely one-room tenements and did not include 
the large group with Nehengelass as given in the figures quoted 
on p. 134. 



172 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

and they expended 1 14,854,030 marks, almost exclusively 
in building apartment houses. Only seven associations 
out of eighty-four built one- and two-family houses. (U. 
S. Bureau Labor Statistics, Bulletin 158). In addition 
to the loans made to societies, the Imperial Government 
has spent a slightly larger sum of money in direct build- 
ing operations for its employees. These were carried 
on by the departments concerned under special appro- 
priations as needed. 

The Prussian Diet began earlier and has operated on a 
more extensive scale than the imperial Reichstag. In 
1895 it passed a law establishing a housing fund of 5,- 
000,000 marks. This was increased at various times by 
the issue of bonds until in 191 1 it totaled 144,000,000 
marks. The law provided that the State might either 
build houses for its own employees or loan to associa- 
tions. In either case, the rents were to cover the cost of 
maintenance, administration, interest and sinking fund. 
(Bulletin 158, pp. 200-207.) This is the usual German 
plan, though administration charges are sometimes car- 
ried by the community and there are sometimes tax ex- 
emptions. But there is always a balance sheet, and it 
always balances. This practice is much to be com- 
mended, and the writer believes it would be soimd psy- 
chology', where a small, unforeseen deficit creeps in, how- 
ever insignificant the amount (often only five or ten 
pounds a year in the British housing accounts), to take 
care of it by an assessment added to the rental rather than 
by charging it to the tax payers. 

In 191 1 about half of the Prussian housing fund had 

been invested in direct building enterprises, most of the 

remainder lent to housing companies, and the residue 

. used in purchasing land which was rented on long leases 

with hereditary rights (Erb-baurecht) to associations 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 173 

or individuals to build on. This was also the use made of 
a small part of the imperial housing fund. Up to Oc- 
tober I, 191 1, 42,457 dwellings (apartments) had been 
provided through the Prussian housing fund, 15,773 t>e- 
ing those the Government had constructed, 25,157 those 
built by associations and 1,527 those built by individuals. 
This would mean the housing of from 200,000 to 250,- 
000 persons, in view of the size of German families. 

T. C. Horsfall, in his " Example of Germany," gives a 
fairly clear account of the Prussian laws of 1895, 1898, 
1899, 1900 and 1903, which established with increasing 
emphasis the duty of the State to provide dwellings for 
working people, when these are not otherwise satisfactor- 
ily provided. He quotes the Prussian decree of March 
19, 1 90 1, addressed to the presidents of the thirty-six 
departments, impressing on them their responsibilities. 
Towns may aid by lending money to housing com- 
panies, or purchasing some of their shares, or borrowing 
money for them from the State Insurance Institutes on 
the security of their own credit. But ** it is advisable 
as a rule that the towns themselves shall build the 
houses." 

No other German state has worked on so large a scale 
as Prussia, but all have developed housing activities along 
one line or another. Several have established housing 
funds. The Bavarian Diet, for instance, from 1900 to 
191 1, appropriated 25,500,000 marks, of which about 
half was spent on direct housing for state employees and 
half was loaned to housing companies. (Bulletin 158, 
pp. 215-219.) 

The Grand Duchy of Hesse has proceeded along some- 
what different lines. According to Horsfall, it was the 
first German state to establish systematic and comprehen- 
sive housing inspection (1893). The Housing Act of 



174 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

1902 centralized and standardized this sen-ice by putting 
it all under one state official {Grossh. Landesu'ohnungs- 
ijuspekfor), who also has constructive and advisory du- 
ties. Another act of the same year established a state 
bank (Latideskreditkasse) which is permitted to lend to 
communes for housing purposes up to 90 per cent, of 
the value of land and buildings. The communes may 
either build themselves or re-lend to associations. By 
an act of 1908, the bank was permitted to lend directly 
to housing companies up to two-thirds the cost of land 
and buildings. The money is provided through an issue 
of 3^ per cent. Hessian government bonds, and the rate 
of interest charged depends on the actual sale price of 
the bonds, being just enough to cover expenses. Still 
another source of credit is provided by another state 
bank (Hessiche Latideshypothekenbank) , also estab- 
lished in 1902, which lends at 4^ per cent. (Bulletin 
158, pp. 222-226.) 

Saxony, Wiirttemberg. Baden, and numerous other 
states build houses for their own employees and assist in 
other ways, but a detailed description of their activities 
would be merely a tiresome repetition. 

The cities of Germany, as already stated, have been 
extremely active in housing, and to a large extent on 
their own initiative. In 1909, at the time of an official 
report {Wohnungsfiirsorge in deutschen Stddten. 
Bearbeitet in Kaiserlichen Statistischen Amte, Berlin, 
1910) forty-two cities, having a population of over 50,- 
000, had provided houses for their own employees and 
fifteen such cities had provided them for the working 
classes in general. There were also twenty-six cities of 
over 50,000 inhabitants and seven smaller ones which 
aided housing through communal loans. These sums run 
from a few thousand marks in the smaller places to funds 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 175 

of 1,500,000 marks in Berlin and aggregate more than 
11,000,000 marks. 

Germany has, nominally, all four forms of govern- 
ment aid, but the third form, loans to individual work- 
men, is practiced on so small a scale as to be negligible. 
Individual initiative is not a characteristic of German 
workingmen, nor has it been the policy of the Govern- 
ment to cultivate it. The first and second forms have 
been very highly developed and to an approximately 
equal extent. The societies which receive loans and 
build houses (Bauvereine) have mostly grown up since 
1890. They run the gamut from purely philanthropic 
to purely cooperative, the latter usually along employ- 
ment lines, as railroad employees or postal employees. 
They are registered and have limited dividends, usually 
4 per cent. The several states make various provisions. 
There is always some sort of official supervision and 
auditing, some provisions as to the standard of accom- 
modations, the amounts of rents and who the tenants are 
to be. A very frequent stipulation is that in case of dis- 
solution, their surplus should be devoted to some public 
purpose. There has been, as in England, a distinct ri- 
valry between the municipal builders and the housing 
companies, from which, as in England, nothing but good 
has resulted. Each side endeavors to prove its superior- 
ity in combining the highest standards with the lowest 
costs. 

As for the German standard, it is very distinctly the 
apartment house, usually of four stories, in the heart of 
the city, with apartments for the most part of only two 
or three rooms, but large, airy and well-lighted ones, 
generally without baths, but with water and sanitary con- 
veniences. A few cities like Ulm and Diisseldorf have 
made efforts to build and sell to workingmen on easy 



176 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

payments single-family cottages with garden plots, but 
the type is not characteristic. Garden suburbs have been 
slow to attract the Germans. Their instincts seem to 
be peculiarly gregarious. The movement has, however, 
started. 

In the Journal of the American Institute of Archi- 
tects just before the outbreak of the war, Richard B. 
Watrous, Secretary of the American Civic Association, 
had an article (" Personal Observations of some Devel- 
opments in Housing in Europe," July, 1914) in which 
after commenting on the apartment house character of 
German housing, he says : " Germany has, however, 
caught, to a degree, the garden city spirit. On the 
outskirts of Dresden there is the small garden city of 
Hellerau, which is tastefully laid out in delightful sur- 
roundings, and distinguished for the erection of pretty, 
little, detached, semi-detached, and rows of houses, de- 
signed to accommodate single families or many families, 
as the case may be. The Hellerau garden city is a par- 
ticular type of artistic development, although it was ap- 
parent that the Germans have not yet taken to living in 
the suburbs to the extent that is characteristic of Great 
Britain. The dividing lines between the city limits and 
the open farming country are in most cases clearly 
drawn." He then goes on to describe Margarethenhohe, 
the Krupp garden suburb on the outskirts of Essen. 

Frederic C. Howe in " European Cities at Work " 
(1913) gives some further account of Hellerau, which 
was started in 1909 by a cooperative housing company 
renting only to members. Karlsruhe started a garden 
suburb, he tells us, in 191 1, and at the time his book was 
written, Ratshof, Nuremberg and Munich were making 
plans for enterprises along these lines. The last named 
was to house twelve or thirteen thousand people. 



\ 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 177 

Town planning legislation is not found in Germany 
(unless we count as such the celebrated Lex Adickes, 
under which cities acquire land outside their limits for 
the purpose of controlling development). But the rea- 
son is that legislation is not necessary. All the results of 
town planning are secured by the German zoning sys- 
tem, and further control of land values and real estate 
speculation is afforded by the policy of cities owning 
large tracts of land both within and without their bound- 
aries. The city of Ulm owns 80 per cent, of the land on 
which it is built. 

B. Results of Legislation 

(a) Some typical examples in Ulm, Dusseldorf and 
Munich. 

To be strictly accurate it was the city of Freiburg 
which built the first municipal tenements (1886) and 
the first municipal cottages (1862-63) in Germany. 
Yet it is not of Freiburg, but of Ulm one thinks in con- 
nection with the beginnings of these activities, for Ulm 
made a success of them. And the trail leads back to a 
personality, that of the OberbUrgermeister of Ulm, Dr. 
von Wagner, who may well be called the father of mu- 
nicipal housing in Germany. He began building in 1888 
for municipal employees and later extended the benefits 
of his activities to other workingmen. His first ven- 
tures were tenements, but he soon became convinced of 
the advantages of the individual cottage and garden, 
which he encouraged the tenants to purchase. A mark a 
day over a period of about twenty-five years covered the 
purchase price and interest charges of a $1,500, brick, 
story-and-a-half cottage with garden, very attractive to 
the eye. German foresight is shown in the stipulation 
in the deed, which gives the city the right to repurchase, 



178 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

if certain conditions of maintenance or use are violated, 
at any time within one hundred years, and as this clause 
is renewed whenever the house changes hands by pur- 
chase or inheritance, it is, in effect, a perpetual restriction. 

Mayor von Wagner developed, simultaneously with 
housing, the policy of extensive land purchases by the 
city, which many German cities have followed. He en- 
countered much opposition at first, to both activities, but 
it gradually died out, as experience proved that his hous- 
ing policy cost the taxpayers nothing, and that his land- 
purchasing policy brought in substantial profits. 

{Die Thdtigkeit der Stadt Ulm auf deni Gebiete der 
W ohnungsfilrsorge fiir Arbeiter und Bedienstete, Ober- 
biirgermeister Wagner, Ulm, 1903. 

Ulm on the Danube, Richard T. Ely, The Survey, 
December 6, 19 13.) 

Ulm was a pioneer. For a typical example of more 
recent municipal housing in cities of medium size, we 
may take Diisseldorf, which is one of the fifteen which 
build houses for all classes of laborers and others of like 
income. 

The imperial inquiry already alluded to (Wohmings- 
fUrsorge in deutschen Stddten, Berlin, 19 10), states that 
at that time Dusseldorf had built twenty houses contain- 
ing one hundred and forty-one apartments at a cost of 
1,066,000 marks. An illustrated pamphlet published by 
the city in 19 13 gives the story of a later and more exten- 
sive enterprise. {Die Kleinwohnungen der Stadt Diis- 
seldorf an der Essenerstrasse, erhaut, August 1^12-1^, 
vom Beigeordneten Knopp, Dusseldorf.^) 

With the purpose of this development in view, the city 

1 For the privilege of studying this and the following report, the 
writer is indebted to Mr. Richard B. Watrous, Secretary of the 
American Civic Association. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 179 

acquired in 19 10 some parcels of land between Miinster, 
Collenbach and Glochen Streets facing the public school, 
which, with land adjoining the school already owned by 
the city, totaled 12,350 square meters. It was decided to 
construct a street twenty-five meters broad, Essener 
Street, connecting Miinster and Collenbach Streets, to be 
built up on one side only with four-story apartment 
houses. The street was to consist of sidewalk (3 me- 
ters), roadway (6 meters) and parking, with promenades 
and play-grounds for children (16 meters). An attrac- 
tive architectural effect, economy of space, and a home- 
like air of seclusion and quiet for the enclosed street was 
secured by having the two entrances to Essener Street 
consist of arches, over which were built apartments con- 
tinuous with the adjoining houses. 

Between Collenbach and Glochen Streets was a piece 
of land on which apartment houses could be advantage- 
ously built (two rooms deep only) around four sides of 
a large interior court. 

The transfer of the various pieces of property to the 
city, the construction of streets and sewers, the laying of 
gas pipes and water mains, took some time, and the actual 
building did not begin till July, 19 12. 

It was decided to avoid monotony of architectural 
effect by dividing the work among eight architects, rep- 
resenting three societies of architects. The successful 
ones were chosen from twenty-eight competitors. Care 
was taken to secure essential unity under the apparent 
diversity (this sounds difficult) and to have the various 
architects pull together. The buildings were to contain 
two- and three-room apartments. Each apartment was to 
be completely separated from the others and have its own 
cellar and store-room in the basement, and there were to 
be a laundry and drying room for each six families (one 



i8o Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

day each week for each). The buildings were to be of 
a substantial character and pleasing appearance. The 
first estimate of cost by the architects was too high to 
permit the desired scale of rental. (Note that the expe- 
dient of charging the difference to the tax payers was 
not considered by the city fathers. ) The architects were 
sent back to decide where and how they could best cut. 
The estimate finally adopted is summarized as follows: 

Cost of land 273,000 marks 

Paving, sewers, etc 75,ooo marks 

Cost of houses 1,287,000 marks 

Parking and miscellaneous 65,000 marks 

Total 1,700,000 marks 

On this basis the annual up-keep was figured in this 
way : 

4% interest on loan of 1,700,000 marks 68,000 marks 

j^% for sinking fund 8,500 marks 

y2% for taxes, water rents, etc 8,500 marks 

^% for repairs (= about 1% cost of building) 12,750 marks 

Total, 5H7o 97,750 marks 

This is the other side of the balance sheet: 

Annual Receipts 
a — for 642 rooms at an average rental of 11.50 

marks monthly = 138 marks yearly 88,596 marks 

b — for 156 attic rooms at 4 marks monthly := 48 

marks yearly 7.488 marks 

c — for 5 shops at 40 marks monthly = 480 marks 

yearly 2,400 marks 

Total 98,484 marks 

They did not need to figure on loss from vacant apart- 
ments, for the demand was so great that they were all 
rented before the building was completed. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries i8i 

Altogether 33 four-story apartment houses were built 
containing 188 two-room and 89 three-room apartments. 
Each apartment consisted of a combined kitchen and liv- 
ing-room, with a separate scullery in most cases, and one 
or two bedrooms. All had running water and a toilet, as 
well as a balcony overlooking the court. Some had cup- 
boards and closets. 

One hundred and forty- three of the 2yy apartments 
were rented to laborers and artisans, the other tenants 
being streetcar and gas works employees, firemen, clerks, 
widows, etc. Fifty- three per cent, of the tenants at the 
date of this pamphlet were employed by the city. 

A loan of 700,000 marks was secured from the State 
Insurance Institute of the Rhenish Provinces (Landes- 
versicherungsanstalt Rheinprovinz) at 3}^ per cent, 
with 154 per cent, for the sinking fund on the condition 
that about 40 per cent, of the tenants must be persons 
coming under the compulsory insurance law and not in 
the service of the city. 

This report has been gone into in detail to serve as a 
sample of the German system. It shows both character- 
istic merits and characteristic defects. The merits in- 
clude the excellent business method employed, the sub- 
stantial character of the buildings, good architectural 
effect, ample air space and parking and generous size of 
rooms. The great defect is the low standard of living 
permitted by the large proportion of two-room apart- 
ments. We also note the absence of baths. 

The average cost per family (apartment) of this de- 
velopment was 6,137 marks as against 7,560 marks for 
the earlier one. 

We must glance even more rapidly at another report 
typical of another main line of activity in Germany, the 
housing companies. This is an illustrated pamphlet 



1 82 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

published by the Society for the Improvement of Housing 
Conditions {Verein fiir Verhesserung der Wohnungs- 
verhdltnisse) of Munich, to celebrate the completion of a 
block of houses facing on Dachaurstrasse (and three 
other streets) in 191 1. It had published a similar 
pamphlet on completing the Sendlinger block in 1905. 
The new block consists of two hundred and twenty-four 
apartments in (mostly) four-story houses built around 
a large court which contains playgrounds, drying places 
for clothes, and small individual garden allotments. The 
apartments are of two and three rooms, and a few of 
four. Many have a small sleeping room in addition. 
All have toilet, running water, food-closets and loggia. 
A few have baths. Store-rooms and communal baths are 
in the basement. The rents are from 10 to 12 marks 
monthly per room with half price for the small sleeping 
rooms referred to. There is a kindergarten on the prem- 
ises and a reading room. The government of the houses 
is by a committee of five tenants. 

Two-thirds of the money required (1,400,000 marks) 
was obtained from the insurance funds at 3^ per cent, 
interest and ^ per cent, for the sinking fund. The 
remainder up to 85 per cent, was loaned by the city on 
second mortgage on the same terms plus % per cent. 
Fifteen per cent, of the capital was subscribed by the 
association. Rents were determined by the necessity of 
a 6 per cent, gross return on the capital to cover charges 
and up-keep. An exemption from the house tax for 
twelve years permits the accumulation of a reserve fund 
for the time when extensive repairs will be needed. 

This development has most of the merits of that of 
Diisseldorf, though there is less parking and probably 
less architectural beauty. The cost per family (apart- 
ment) is nearly the same, 6,205 i^iarks, and as a number 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 183 

of bedrooms, large and small, have been added, and 
some baths, the indoor standard is clearly higher. 

{Die Bauten an der Dachauerstrasse in MUnchen, 
ipop-ipiij Verein fUr Verhesserung der Wohnungs- 
verhdltnisse in MUnchen. Ein Festschrift zur Vollen- 
dung des Blocks, Miinchen, 191 1.) 

(b) Summary of money expended, houses built and 
persons housed. 

As elsewhere, we can deal only in estimates. Loans 
from the Old Age and Invalidity Insurance Institutes up 
to the end of 1914 totaled 532,541,142 marks {Amtliche 
Nachrichten des ReichsversicherungsamtSj Vol. 31, No. 
5, May 15, 1915). This, added to the various housing 
funds previously enumerated and the estimated direct ex- 
penditures of the Imperial Government, comes to over 
786,000,000 marks. The housing activities of Saxony, 
Baden and a number of other states have not been in- 
cluded, nor the loans made by the Hessian mortgage and 
credit banks and numerous similar institutions elsewhere. 
It is evident that well over a billion marks of govern- 
ment-raised or government-guarded money must have 
been used up to the outbreak of the war for housing pur- 
poses. So far as information is obtainable, little, if 
anything, has been done since the war began. 

In 19 1 2 there were 1,271 public-welfare housing com- 
panies in Germany {gemeinniltzige Baugenossenschaf- 
ten) (Mitteilungen zur deutschen Genossenschaftssta'- 
tistik fUr 191 1, Berlin, 1914 ^). The 716 of these which 
made reports had built 15,784 houses at a cost of $103,- 
426,023. What the other 555 societies had done, we 
have no means of knowing. 

A French official pubHcation of August, 19 13, {Bul- 
letin du Minister e du travail) estimates that as early as 

1 Quoted p. 163 Bulletin 158. 



184 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

1909 about 25,000 houses containing about 100,000 
apartments, had been built by German housing com- 
panies. The data on which the estimate is based are not 
given. 

If the French estimate is accurate, and if, as is gen- 
erally believed, the cities and states have done about as 
much housing as the societies, we could say without fear 
of contradiction that considerably over a million Germans 
have been housed through these activities. In certain 
towns (Neuss for instance) the proportion of the popu- 
lation so housed reaches as high as 10 per cent. 

Clearly, before the war, Germany had undertaken 
housing reform on a larger scale than any other country. 
Also the need was greater. 

4. OTHER EUROPEAN NATIONS, SOUTH AMERICA AND 

CUBA 

It will be necessary to run much more rapidly over the 
constructive housing legislation developed in other coun- 
tries and its results. The three nations just described 
were the pioneers. France and Italy have developed 
some slightly different features, and the English self- 
governing colonies in Australasia and Canada have had 
a history which deserves separate treatment. The other 
countries interest us chiefly through the testimony their 
laws bear to the prevalent belief among those whose geo- 
graphical and racial proximity best qualified them to 
judge, that the housing laws and practices of Great 
Britain, Belgium and Germany are w^orthy of imitation. 
This testimony is of very real , force, especially when we 
consider that these laws were passed, with the excep- 
tion of the French and Danish, from 1901 to 191 1 — 
or after from 10 to 20 years of observation at close 
range of the workings and results of the pioneer laws. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 185 

It is pertinent also to observe that the wide range of local 
conditions, and of legal and constitutional restrictions in 
the various countries adopting these laws, bear witness 
to the adaptability of the general principles involved. 

Besides the three pioneer countries already treated and 
the English self-governing colonies, the French Depart- 
ment of Labor study of 19 13 (already quoted) names 
eleven European countries and two South American as 
affording government aid in the housing of workingmen. 
Our own Bureau of Labor Statistics, (Bulletin 158), 
names twelve European countries, one South American 
and Cuba. The Massachusetts Homestead Commission 
(Appendix of First Annual Report), names eleven Euro- 
pean countries, three South American countries and Cuba. 

(i) France 

It would not be difficult to make out a fair case for 
France as one of the pioneers. She was certainly one 
of the earliest countries to give thought to the subject 
and to try experiments along novel lines, experiments 
which undoubtedly had weight in influencing the Belgian 
law especially. But they were so little followed up that 
it seems fairer to regard them as laboratory tests rather 
than as genuine experiences. Besides they were not 
very successful. They failed to produce the desired re- 
sults. Hampering conditions made them unpopular. 
Or, going to the other extreme, insufficient supervision 
made them unsafe. In short, they did not take root. 

Going back to the Second Empire, we find that in 1852 
ten million francs were appropriated for government 
constructed tenements and to encourage the erection of 
workingmen's dwellings by private initiative. But the 
results, as indicated, were not especially encouraging. 
The Societe frangaise des habitations a hon marche was 



1 86 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

founded in 1889 and has had a large propagandist in- 
fluence. It has been active in pushing legislation, and 
the law of 1894 is largely due to it. Here we see at 
once the influence of the Belgian experience, for this 
law already provides for local housing committees, for 
certain tax exemptions, and for lending public funds 
to housing companies. The life insurance feature is 
also included. This law was extended and liberalized 
in 1906 when loans to municipalities were provided for, 
and again in 191 2. There is also a 1908 law referring 
to small holdings and dwellings, intended to foster a back- 
to-the-land movement. 

It should be noted in passing that the French term 
'' habitation a bon marche," although it appears to lay 
the emphasis on cheapness, includes, in use, an approved 
sanitary standard, just as our complementary term, model 
housing, includes the idea of low rental. 

The housing law is administered by a central agency, 
the Conseil superieur des habitations a bon marche, which 
is under the national Department of Labor. It receives 
reports from the local committees and issues an annual 
report of its own. To the end of 19 13 one hundred and 
seventeen local committees had been organized, from all 
but two of which reports had been received. Small 
grants from the Department of Labor were made to these 
committees for administrative purposes. The housing 
law of 19 1 2 added a new administrative unit, the or- 
ganization of which by municipalities was made permis- 
sive. This was the OiUce publique d'hahitations a bon 
marche, which was to administer the restrictive sani- 
tary law, engage in direct municipal housing, receive 
gifts and subsidies and raise money for housing purposes 
in various other ways. In 1913-1914 five such offices 
had been established, including those of Paris and Nantes, 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 187 

with initial appropriations running from 10,000 francs 
to 500,000 francs. {Rapport du conseil superieur des 
habitations a bon marche, 191 3, pub. 1914.) 

Savings banks, charitable institutions and municipali- 
ties may build workingmen's dwellings themselves, may 
buy the stock of housing companies or may lend to such 
companies. Loans are also made by the national Bank 
of Deposits (Caisse des depots et consignations) and the 
National Old-Age Pension Fund (Caisse nationale des 
retraites pour la vieillesse). The rates of interest are 
very low — from 2 per cent, to 3^^ per cent. 

Up to March i, 19 14, 410 Hmited-dividend housing 
companies had qualified to receive these loans. Of these, 
258 were cooperative (workmen's organizations) and 
152 joint-stock (philanthropic). There were also up 
to March, 19 13, y2 real estate loan associations organ- 
ized under the law of 1908. 

These societies build and rent tenements, build, rent 
and sell one- family houses, or lend money to an in- 
dividual workman wishing to build his own home. The 
individual can get a loan only through a society. 

The activity of the communes and municipalities has 
been generally restricted to providing apartments for 
large families, a large family being technically, in France, 
one which contains four or more children under sixteen. 
Such families are commonly discriminated against by 
private landlords, are usually in more straitened cir- 
cumstances than others, and in view of the declining birth- 
rate, it is naturally the policy of the French Govern- 
ment to encourage them. The Housing Act of 19 12 
was expected to add very materially to the activity of 
cities. 

Tax exemptions, though rather numerous, only af- 
fected in 191 3, 16,807 single- family houses and 1,613 



i88 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

tenements containing 11,848 apartments. They 
amounted for the year to 903.360 francs. 

So far the bulk of loans has been much less than in 
the pioneer countries. The total participation of the sav- 
ings banks in housing work to 19 13 aggregated 18,037,- 
703 francs, of which 13,350,380 francs represented loans 
to societies and 1.332. 131 francs loans to individuals, the 
remainder covering direct housing enterprises and pur- 
chase of shares in housing companies. The loans of the 
Bank of Deposits at the same date to housing companies 
amounted to 28,511,100 francs and the National Old- 
Age Pension Fund, acting under the law of 1908, had 
lent 9.078,500 francs to real estate loan associations 
{societes de credit immobilier) to re-lend to individuals. 
A total of 100,000,000 francs from state funds was 
available for this purpose. 

As just stated, the law of 1912 was expected to be 
followed by greatly increased activity, and even in spite 
of the war this expectation has been partly fulfilled. 
While the war has been going on, ^larseilles and Limoges 
have been carr}'ing out extensive slum clearance schemes 
costing many millions of francs, and Paris, act- 
ing under special legislation of 19 13 has gone ahead 
to float the loan of 200,000,000 francs therein au- 
thorized for housing purposes. As one of the direct 
results of the war, France is likely to obtain na- 
tion-wide town planning and governmental aid in 
the housing of workingmen on a scale hitherto undreamed 
of, not for the war-devasted areas alone, but for the 
whole of France. For in France as in Great Britain, 
the ideals of democracy are taking concrete form, and 
an awakened nation demands that the soldiers who are 
shedding their blood to defend their homes shall have 
homes worthv of the sacrifice. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 189 

{Rapports du conseil superieur des habitations cl 
bon marche, 1903-1913; Tenth International Housing 
Congress, The Hague, 1913, Part IH, p. 55, et seq., Re- 
sultats en matiere d'habitation pendant les dernieres 
annees, statistique Unancihe, L. Ferrand, Administra- 
teur de la Societe f rangaise des habitations a bon marche, 
Paris; U. S. Bureau Labor Statistics, Bulletin 158, pp. 
125-156.) 

(2) Italy 

There are several interesting features about housing 
legislation in Italy. In a general way, its housing laws 
are patterned on those of France. But they are by no 
means identical, and they have worked out rather dif- 
ferently. National legislation developed late (1903 was 
the date of the first law, enlarged in 1907 and 1908). 
Previous to that certain cities had been active, especially 
Bologna and Venice. (1862 and 1886 are the respec- 
tive initial dates.) The general policy in Italy seems 
to be to foster private initiative in every way — by ex- 
emption from taxation (buildings of approved character 
and rental for ten years), by long-period loans (fifty 
years is maximum) from the State Bank of Deposits 
at fairly low rates of interest (3^4 to 4^4 per cent.), and 
by the encouragement and sometimes the actual founding 
of private limited-dividend housing companies. Only 
where no such societies exist or can be started, or where 
their work is clearly inadequate to meet the situation, are 
the communes to undertake building themselves. Under 
such circumstances, however, it is obligatory upon them 
to do so. The communes sometimes subsidize the under- 
taking by furnishing the required land free or below cost. 
Local housing committees of seven are appointed by the 
mayor and have taken an active part in the work. 



190 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

At the beginning of 191 1, there were 533 societies and 
25 municipalities constructing case populari (workmen's 
dwellings). The value of the land and houses owned 
by them must at that time have aggregated about 28 
million dollars. (This is merely an estimate, as only 
about half of the societies had turned in reports.) There 
were 475 cooperative societies, 19 mutual aid societies, 33 
independent private organizations and 6 philanthropic 
housing companies. 

One of the most important of the last named is La 
Societd Umanitaria of Milan, which started with a ten 
million lire ($1,930,000) endowment (The Loria foun- 
dation) and calculates its rents on the basis of a 3J/2 
per cent, net return. The Savings Bank of Milan has 
donated a fund of six million lire for housing purposes. 
The Savings Bank of Venice has made numerous gifts 
to the local housing companies. Nearly all the build- 
ings erected have been model tenements — usually large 
blocks built around a court. The general character of 
these houses can be inferred from the statement that 
the Private Association for People's Dwellings of Milan 
owns 52 five-story buildings, containing 2,759 apart- 
ments. Two- and three-room apartments, with private 
water-closets, but only communal baths, predominate. 
Yet any one familiar with even middle and upper class 
accommodations in Italy twenty years ago gasps at the 
account of electric lights, gas ranges, hot water heat, 
Montessori schools, cooperative stores, and other con- 
veniences. Some of it is paternalistic if you like, when 
carried out by the philanthropic foundations, but some 
of the very best enterprises have been managed by the 
workingmen themselves. 

The garden city movement is still in its infancy. 
Milanino, modeled on Letchworth, has been started in 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 191 

the outskirts of Milan, and Venice had a garden city 
experiment on a small scale at Lido. 

Municipal dwellings, where they exist, must be rented 
to persons whose annual income does not exceed 1,500 
Hre ($289.50). In view of the difference in wages 
and cost of living, that would be, perhaps, equivalent to 
a $600 limit in this country. 

Sometimes, though not always, rent reductions are 
made to families with a large number of children, usually 
a progressive reduction increasing with the number of 
children. 

Benefiting housing companies must register their by- 
laws with the Minister of Commerce and Labor and 
must not pay dividends in excess of 5 per cent. 

Besides Milan, Bologna and Venice, already referred 
to, Florence and Rome have been active in housing enter- 
prises. In Rome up to 191 1, 38,000,000 lire had been 
loaned to various housing organizations by the State 
Bank of Deposits and other government agencies. Some 
of these loans were made under special laws applying to 
the capital city. 

Obviously what Italy has done cannot be compared in 
bulk with accomplishments in the pioneer countries, but 
for the time she has been in the field, a surprising amount 
has been achieved. She is evidently thoroughly in 
earnest. 

The remaining European countries must be treated 
still more briefly. 

(3) Austria 

An imperial housing fund of 25,000,000 Kronen ($5,- 
075,000) was provided in 19 10. Austrian housing laws 
date from 1910 and 191 1 and closely follow the German 
models. Loans are made, not only from the housing 



192 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

fund, but from the State Insurance Institutes. They 
are made to pubHc welfare housing companies or to 
communes willing to undertake municipal building. It 
is interesting to note that the framers of the Austrian 
law, passed at so late a date, with many years of Ger- 
man experience close at hand to study, felt it safe to 
formulate its theories of helpfulness along the lines of 
the most liberal German states. For instance it per- 
mits loans up to 90 per cent, of the value of land and 
buildings. 

The Imperial Austrian Government, like the Imperial 
German Government, builds houses for its own employees 
in railroads, mines, etc., on a large scale. Austrian 
cities, like German cities, build for their own minor offi- 
cials, and in some cases for the general working popula- 
tion. Tax exemptions form a rather prominent part of 
the aid given. 

At the end of 19 12 there were 634 public welfare hous- 
ing companies in the empire, but of course the work done 
had not had time to show large results. 

(4) Hungary 

Housing laws w^ere late in coming and of a limited 
character, except those relating to tax exemptions. The 
Ministry of Agriculture between 1907 and 1913 granted 
subsidies to pay interest on housing loans to 200 com- 
munes which erected 6,000 one-family cottages for ag- 
ricultural laborers. The city of Budapest took advan- 
tage of the tax exemption law of 1908 to build model 
tenements on land which it already owned. It appro- 
priated nearly 13,000,000 dollars for the purpose, and 
up to 19 1 3 had housed some 22,000 people. Also in 
1908 there was a special act passed which permitted the 
Ministry of Finance to build a workmen's garden suburb 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 193 

at Kispest, connected by trolley with Budapest. The 
houses are remarkable for the very low cost of construc- 
tion, owing to careful management and a cheap form 
of brick, so that they are rented at less than $7 per 
month for a four-room and toilet cottage with running 
water and a garden. About 18,000 people had been 
housed at Kispest in 19 13. 

Housing companies have never succeeded in Hungary. 
There seems to be a lack of the necessary public spirit 
and initiative. 

(5) Holland 

The Dutch law of 1901 is unusually comprehensive 
and well rounded. It aims to be both restrictive and 
constructive. It provides for the expropriation of in- 
sanitary areas, establishes minimum standards of light, 
ventilation, cubic air space and sanitation, provides for 
loans to housing companies from the general govern- 
ment and from municipalities. The proportion loaned 
may be anywhere up to 100 per cent. Interest rates are 
rather high. Municipalities may lend to an individual if 
he has had to move out of an insanitary house. The 
money for the loans comes from the issue of bonds. 
Less than two million dollars had been so loaned up to 
1910 (4,607,350 florins). 

The law is administered by an unpaid board of three 
with a salaried secretary. 

(6) Norway 

Norway is unique in providing only for individual 
loans and individual ownership. The law of 1903 estab- 
lished a State Loan Bank, which besides being the de- 
pository of certain state funds, was authorized to issue 
bonds. Loans are made at 3% per cent, to laborers to 



194 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

permit them to acquire small farms and at 4 per cent, 
to permit them to build houses for themselves. Ix)ans 
are made through the communes, which have to guar- 
antee the borrower. Up to June 30, 19 13, the bank had 
made 13,140 loans for acquiring small farms and 9,460 
for home building. Outstanding loans amounted to 
something over eight and one-half million dollars (32,- 
000,000 crowns). 

(7) Sweden 

A state fund was established in 1904, from which loans 
were made for small farms and workmen's houses. 
These pass, however, through the intermediary of asso- 
ciations. Sweden has also entered the field of municipal 
housing, especially in Stockholm. 

(8) Denmark 

The Danes had a law (1887), permitting government 
loans for housing to associations or communes, which 
antedated the Belgian law. It remained little more than 
a paper authorization, however, until after it had been 
renewed and amended in 1897. These Danish laws have 
been for limited periods. There have been renewals 
with minor variations in 1904, 1909, 1914. One of 
the best features in Denmark is the success of the small, 
but sturdy and independent workingmen's housing com- 
panies, which report twice a year with great formality 
to the Minister of Finance. 

(9) Spain 

An eclectic sort of law was passed in 191 1. It pro- 
vides for local housing committees on the Belgian model, 
free grants of land under certain conditions, tax ex- 
emptions, and a subsidy in the form of guaranteed inter- 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 195 

est, sometimes an out and out gift, to housing companies. 
The appropriation is hmited to 500,000 pesetas annually 
($96,500). It is not discoverable that much has been 
done under this law, though the king has shown consider- 
able personal interest. 

(10) Rumania 

Since 19 10, Rumania has had a housing law which 
grants large tax exemptions to housing companies and 
permits, though it cannot be said greatly to assist, com- 
munes to undertake building. 

(11) Switzerland 

There is no national housing law. The Canton of 
Geneva, however, has done something in municipal hous- 
ing and by encouraging housing companies. Its laws are 
of 1896 and 1903. Certain other cantons grant tax 
exemptions and otherwise encourage building. 

(12) Luxemburg 

A law of 1906 permits the loan of savings bank funds 
to communes, to associations and to employers for build- 
ing workingmen's dwellings. 

When we look oyer this list of European states which 
have adopted the twin principles of community respon- 
sibility for good housing and governmental aid in se- 
curing it, we reaHze the enormous weight of testimony 
they represent. When we see among them republics and 
empires, the most highly centralized and the most loosely 
federated of nations, we must acknowledge the elasticity 
and the adaptability of constructive housing legislation. 
When we further note which countries are omitted from 
the list — Russia, Turkey, the Balkan States (except 



196 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Rumania) and Portugal — no others — we can hardly 
doubt which group better represents progress. 

When we come to the Latin-American countries, it 
is interesting to note that it is precisely the three great 
progressive nations w^hich have undertaken constructive 
housing. 

(13) Chile 

With her high death-rate, especially her high infant 
death-rate, Chile has naturally done some thinking on 
the dangers of overcrowded and insanitary houses. 
The result was the Chilean housing law of 1906. It 
provides for housing councils in each department and 
gives them extensive powers — to close and demolish in- 
sanitary houses or areas, to encourage housing com- 
panies, or to build themselves. {Las Hahitaciones 
O brer as en Chile y en el Estranjero. Oficina del Tra- 
bajo. Santiago, 191 1.) It grants tax exemptions and 
special favors in the way of streets, sidewalks, water, 
etc. The Caja de Credito Hipotecario will lend 75 per 
cent, of the value of the property. The state will guaran- 
tee 6 per cent, dividends for twenty years to a society 
which meets its requirements. It would seem as though 
capital would flow in from the ends of the earth to 
meet such an offer. But the fact is that up to 191 1, 
only a few housing councils had even been organized, 
and none except that of Santiago had done serious work. 
The report of the Santiago council already quoted ( 191 1 ) 
tells of having ordered the demolition of 230 tenements, 
containing 2,300 apartments inhabited by 6,900 per- 
sons, and of having issued bonds for 6,000,000 "pesos to 
undertake building operations. It w^as ^Isb constriTCf- 
ing- a workmen's suburb (barrw obreroj 2it' Sari Eugenio 
and' hadbttilt one hundred ohh^iajnily-tbtlzges-at ^e 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 197 

date of the report. The Caja de Credito Hipotecario 
was also putting up a barrio obrero ait Huemul, which 
had so far one hundred and sixty-four one-family houses. 

(14) Brazil 

Under a law passed in 1909, companies building houses 
for workingmen were to enjoy tax exemption for fifteen 
years, exemption from duty on building materials, and 
in some cases were to receive reclaimed or other public 
land free of charge. They were to be under strict gov- 
ernment supervision. 

(15) Argentina 

In 1913 the city of Buenos Aires contracted for 10,- 
000 workingmen's cottages to be built at the rate of 
2,000 a year. The Government was to exempt from im- 
port duty the building materials destined for them. 

(16) Cuba 

An appropriation of $1,300,000 was made in 19 10 for 
the purpose of building 2,000 laborers' cottages to be 
sold on small monthly installments. Up to 19 14 about 
1,000 had been built in Havana, Pinar del Rio and Santa 
Clara provinces, and 250 were being built in Santiago 
province. 

(The authority for the foregoing summaries, when not 
otherwise stated, is to be found in U. S. Bureau of Labor 
Statistics, Bulletin 158; First Annual Report Massa- 
chusetts Homestead Commission, Appendix; and the 
Bulletin du minister e du travail, A out 1^13, Les habita- 
tions a bon marche en France et a Vetranger.) 

5. THE SELF-GOVERNING BRITISH COLONIES 

The example and experience of Australia, New Zea- 
land and Canada in housing are of especial value for us in 



198 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

the United States, because their conditions, material and 
moral, furnish a much closer parallel to our own than 
do those of any European country. Canada has the 
added interest pertaining to a next-door neighbor. 

Like the United States, and even more so, they are 
new countries, sparsely settled as yet except in spots. 
Their cities are new, their houses are new, their slums 
and overcrowding are new, and according to old-world 
standards not excessive. Their interest in housing is 
still largely preventive. (We have, unfortunately, 
passed that stage in many of our cities.) They are 
young, energetic, optimistic, and intensely democratic. 
Australia and New Zealand represent the most advanced 
type of social democracy as yet evolved. They are the 
always-quoted paradise of union labor. They have — 
and the fact is not without significance — the lowest 
death-rates in the world. 

That they should have been strongly influenced by the 
housing legislation and experience of the mother coun- 
try is inevitable. That they should have worked out, 
in view of their profoundly different circumstances, pro- 
foundly different results, is quite what one would expect. 
Again, a process of purely a priori reasoning would 
indicate that what we have called the third type of con- 
structive housing legislation — government aid to the in- 
dividual workingman in becoming a home-owner — 
would be most appropriate in a new and energetic com- 
monwealth where wages and standards of living are 
relatively high and the working population virile and 
ambitious. This is precisely what we find in Australia 
and New Zealand. Canada has begun from a different 
angle through accidents of association, and her experi- 
ence is too recent to predict safely its future lines of 
development. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 199 

( I ) New Zealand 

The characteristic housing law of New Zealand is the 
Advances to Workers Act of 1906 (amended 1913). 
It is administered through the State Advances Office, 
created in 1894 to assist settlers. Advances to workers 
and to local authorities have been added to its duties. 

The ''New Zealand Official Year Book for 1915 " 
(pp. 636, 637), under the caption Advances to Workers, 
says : 

" The Superintendent of the State Advances Office 
is authorized to lend money for the purpose of purchas- 
ing or erecting a dwelling, to any person employed in 
manual or clerical work who is not in receipt of an in- 
come of more than £200 per annum, and is not the owner 
of any land other than the allotment on which it is pro- 
posed to build. The sum advanced must not exceed 
£450, nor may any advance be granted exceeding the 
value of the dwelling house to be erected. The advance 
is secured by a mortgage on the whole property. No 
loan can be granted to any person who does not take 
up permanent residence on the security. 

" The interest is payable half-yearly, together with 
an installment of the principal, which by this means is 
fully repaid in 36% years, 30 years or 20 years, as the 
case may be, when the mortgage is released. Valuation 
fees and the cost of preparing and registering the neces- 
sary deeds are fixed by regulation on an exceedingly low 
scale, and are payable by the borrower. . . . Plans and 
specifications if required, are supplied to applicants free 
of charge, in order to enable a selection to be made. 
Eighteen different types of houses, containing from two 
to eight rooms, are covered by the plans. They are 
drawn with a view to getting a maximum of room and 
convenience at a reasonable price. The cost of the build- 



200 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

ings varies according to the size from £120 to £640. 
The plates may be inspected at the chief post-offices in 
the Dominion. . . . Application for a loan may be made 
to Postmasters or to representatives of the Valuation 
Department." 

Note the extreme simplicity of e arrangement. 
There is no loan or housing company acting as intermedi- 
ary between the Government and the worker, as in the 
Belgian system, which has been followed by every Eu- 
ropean country making housing loans to individual work- 
ingmen, with the exception of Nonvay, where the com- 
mune acts as intermediary and guarantor, and Great 
Britain, where the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act 
makes a similar use of the local authority. Neither is 
there any elaborate governmental machinery. Any 
workingman may go to his post-office and get an ap- 
plication blank for a housing loan as easily as he would 
get an application blank for a money order. He can 
look over the eighteen carefully chosen plans and de- 
cide how much money he will need to borrow. The 
postmaster will give him any needed advice about filling 
in his application and will forward it for him to the 
State Advances Office. Then an agent from the near- 
est Valuation Office is sent to investigate his economic 
status, character and reliability, the land on which he 
proposes to build, the reasonableness of the amount of 
loan asked, and other pertinent circumstances. For this, 
the applicant pays the very modest fee of seven shillings, 
six pence. On the information so gathered, his appli- 
cation is either accepted or rejected. If accepted, he 
makes his payments of interest and principal through 
his post-office. Interest is at 5 per cent, reducible to 
4% for prompt payment. Could the elimination of red 
tape go farther? And yet it seems to work. 



I 



I 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 201 

Note that there is nothing to prevent the full value 
of a house costing £450 or less being borrowed, or that 
amount being borrowed for a more expensive house. 
The workingman must in any case own the land, either 
in fee simple or long time lease before he appHes for a 
loan. In 191 5 about nineteen-twentieths of those who 
received loans owned their land in fee simple. 

The total of advances to workers up to the thirty-first 
of March, 19 16, was £3,532,360, a large sum when the 
population of New Zealand and the time the law had 
been in operation are considered. 

During the year ending March 31, 19 16, 953 loans ag- 
gregating £297,630 were granted. (*' New Zealand Offi- 
cial Year Book," 19 16, pp. 515, 516.) 

For the benefit of the man who does not own any 
land, New Zealand has the Workers' Dwellings Act 
(1905, 1910, 1914). Only a deposit of £10 is required, 
and the applicant's income must not exceed £175 (£150 
in the 1905 act). The State builds the house on crown 
or settlement land and rents it on a weekly tenancy or on 
a fifty-year lease, or permits the occupant to acquire 
ownership. It is significant that until the act of 19 10 
made the acquirement of ownership easy, hardly any 
advantage was taken of this law. In the five years from 
1905 to 1 9 10 only one hundred and twenty houses were 
built. Practically all since 19 10 have been occupied 
on terms involving ultimate ownership. Eighty-two 
houses were built during the year ending March 31, 
19 1 6. Thirty-seven were in course of erection. One 
hundred and sixty-two had been built the previous 
year, and one hundred and eighty-three the year be- 
fore that. Five hundred and ninety had been built in 
all. 

Freehold may be acquired ( i ) by cash payment at the 



202 Housing of the Umkilled Wage Earner 

end of twenty-five years, (2) by monthly payments ex- 
tending over 25, 32 or 41 years, or (3) by a life insur- 
ance policy in favor of the State, which is thus paid on 
the death of the borrower or at the maturity of the poHcy 
in 2^, ^2, or 41 years. 

(2) Australia 

The rather full description just given of the Advances 
to Workers and Workers' Dwellings Acts of New Zealand 
makes it unnecessary^ to spend much time on the housing 
laws of the several Australian states. With the excep- 
tion of the Savings Bank Act of Victoria (1890), they 
are of later date than the New Zealand laws and bear 
a strong family resemblance to them. All six states of 
the commonwealth lend money to settlers on farm lands, 
as does New Zealand. Five of them (New South Wales, 
Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Aus- 
tralia) lend money to workingmen to build or acquire 
homes under laws similar to the Advances to Workers 
Act of New Zealand. Three of them (New South 
Whales, Victoria and Western Australia) build homes to 
rent or sell to workingmen under laws analogous to the 
Workers' Dwellings Act. An interesting recent experi- 
ment, advocated by English reformers, but tried first in 
Australia, is the Fair Rents Court, to which any tenant 
who thinks he is paying an exorbitant rent may apply for 
a ruling. 

The titles and dates of the Australian housing laws 
are as follows (Bulletin 158, p. 419, and " Victorian Year 
Book," 1914, pp. 81, 280) : 

Victoria, Savings Bank Act, 1890, 1896, 1900, 1901, 
1903, 1910, 1912. Workers' Dwelhngs Act, 1914. 

Queensland, Advances for Homes Act, 1909, 191 1, 
1912. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 203 

South Australia, Advances for Homes Act, 1910, 191 1, 
1912. 

Western Australia, Workers' Homes Act, 191 1, 
1912. 

New South Wales, Workers' Dwellings Act, 191 2, Sav- 
ings Bank Amendment Act (State Advances for 
Homes), 19 13. 

It is interesting to note that the maximum income of 
a borrower has been placed unprecedently high in two of 
the Australian states, being £300 in South Australia and 
£400 in Western Australia. The rate of interest is 
usually 5 per cent., but reaches 6 per cent, in Western 
Australia. It is customary, however, to deduct J^ per 
cent, for prompt payment, as in New Zealand. The 
proportion of the cost of a house that can be borrowed 
varies from two-thirds to four-fifths. The time varies 
from 15 to 42 years, according to province and building 
material, but tends to be 20 years for wood and 30 for 
brick or concrete. There are administrative boards, but 
no intermediary organization. Either the loans come 
from the savings bank, or there is a housing fund sup- 
plied by a yearly appropriation or bond issue, and the 
application for a loan is handled through the post-office 
as in New Zealand. 

Some of the Australian states are slow in getting out 
their official reports, so that it is impossible, in this coun- 
try at least, to secure recent figures. In spite of this and 
the short time most of the laws have been in operation, 
it is evident that they are being very extensively utilized. 
The following table has been compiled on the analogy 
of the one on page 423 of Bulletin 158, but with more 
recent figures wherever obtainable: 



204 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 



State 


Date of 
Report 


Number of 
Loans Granted 


Amount of 
Loans Made 


Queensland 

South Australia . . 

Victoria 

Western Australia 
New South Wales. 


June 30, 1913 
June 30, 1912 
June 30, 1912 
June 30, 1914 
June 30, 1914 


2,362 
1,422 
2,359 
1,747 
728 


i6o2,3i5 
417,549 
669,793 
675,532 
283,870 


Totals 




8,618 £2,649,059 



(3) Canada 

The housing history of Canada is of later and less 
democratic origin than that of Australia. It came, 
closely linked with town planning, from above down- 
ward — part of the educational propaganda of the Com- 
mission of Conservation. 

This Commission dates from 19 10. It has a dis- 
tinguished membership inspiring public confidence. " Its 
duty is to advise the Executive Authorities from the 
Dominion Parliament downwards regarding legislative 
and administrative policies affecting all questions con- 
cerned with conservation of the natural resources of the 
Dominion. . . . From its inception the Commission has 
taken a broad view of what is meant by the term ' natural 
resources.' The Chairman of the Commission in his in- 
augural address in 19 10, said: 'The physical strength 
of the people is the resource from which all others derive 
value. Extreme and scrupulous regard for the lives and 
health of the population may be taken as the best criterion 
of the degree of real civilization and refinement to which 
a countr}^ has attained.' " This extract from a memoran- 
dum sent by the Commission to the Convention of the 
American Civic Association in December, 19 14, well ex- 
presses the broad and enlightened view the Commission 
takes of its duties. The first years were, indeed, largely 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 205 

devoted to forestry and other natural resources, but more 
and more it turned its attention to the conservation of hu- 
man resources. In the summer of 1914, just before the 
outbreak of the war, it engaged the services of Thomas 
Adams as expert adviser for the Town Planning and 
Housing branch which it was organizing in its Com- 
mittee of Public Health. Mr. Adams had been for some 
years the town planning expert of the Local Govern- 
ment Board of England and Wales and had had previ- 
ous garden city experience, notably in connection with 
Letchworth. 

Meanwhile several beginnings had been made. Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick in 19 12 had passed town 
planning laws modeled on the British law of 1909. The 
Nova Scotia law had a housing clause |)ermitting muni- 
cipalities to form housing companies or guarantee their 
bonds. So far nothing has been done under the housing 
clauses. In Ontario the cities were granted certain pow- 
ers, but they were too restricted to be of much use, 
Quebec and Ontario in 19 13 passed housing acts per- 
mitting municipalities to guarantee up to 85 per cent, of 
the bonds of a limited-dividend housing company whose 
primary object is not profit, but the furnishing of good 
houses for workingmen at reasonable rentals. 

The Ontario act was largely the result of the influence 
of a group of public spirited persons who had organized 
the Toronto Housing Company. Under it the company 
proceeded to initiate a million-dollar development of cot- 
tages and cottage flats. 

It will be seen that, in order to carry out this project, 
$150,000 would have to be subscribed from private 
sources, and that there would be an issue of government 
guaranteed bonds amounting to $850,000. Of course 
the war introduced an unforeseen and abnormal financial 



2o6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

situation, and it is not surprising that the plan has not, so 
far, been carried out in its entirety. The original sub- 
scription of private capital was for $104,150, and guar- 
anteed bonds to the amount of $500,000 have been issued. 
Building has been carried out so far as funds allow. At 
Riverdale Courts, two hundred and four cottage flats 
have been completed. They have two to five rooms with 
a kitchenette and bath, are steam-heated and rented from 
$16 to $29.50 per month. In 19 18 owing to increased 
taxes and increased price of coal, the rent of the cheapest 
apartments were raised $3.25 and the most expensive 
$9 per month. The Company has also a smaller de- 
velopment at Spruce Court, where thirty-eight cottage 
flats and single-family houses are rented at slightly lower 
rates. 

The Toronto Housing Company has issued several il- 
lustrated pamphlets, the most recent being a report pre- 
sented by the Board of Control, July 24, 19 18. 

Dividends are limited to 6 per cent., but so far none 
have been paid, which is not surprising, considering that 
land was bought and arrangements made on the basis 
of a million-dollar enterprise. The bonds pay 5 per 
cent. 

The need of more houses is acute, and the company is 
now renewing its efforts to get additional stock sub- 
scriptions. The sale of bonds has suffered from the com- 
petition of government war issues at 6% per cent. 

Under the Quebec Housing Act, nothing was done till 
quite recently. In the January, 1918, issue of Conserva- 
tion of Life, the publication of the Canadian Commission 
of Conservation, a brief description will be found, with 
illustrations, of a housing development at Pointe-aux- 
Trembles, near Montreal, by the newly organized So- 
ciete des logements ouvriers. Details are lacking. 



The Experience of Foreign Countries 207 

In 191 5, the town planning and housing branch of the 
Committee of Conservation, under Mr. Adams' guidance, 
prepared a Draft Town Planning Act for submission to 
the various provincial legislatures. It also inspired the 
creation of a Civic Improvement League for Canada, with 
local branches, provincial councils and a national or 
Dominion council. The organization suggests that it 
is intended to prepare the way for something along the 
line of the comites de patronage. Its membership is of 
a representative character and includes women as well as 
men. Mr. Adams acts as their staff adviser. Obvi- 
ously,^ for the present, the committees are to serve as edu- 
cational leaven, preparing an enlightened public opinion 
for future action along broad constructive lines. 

The time has not been considered propitious for push- 
ing housing legislation,^ though a good deal of prelimin- 
ary work in collecting data has been done, but town plan- 
ning has made notable progress. At the present date 
(August, 191 8), all but two of the provincial legisla- 
tures have passed town planning acts, and those two are 
expected to do so shortly. The later acts show some 
modification of the 19 15 draft, owing to the increasing 
emphasis wisely placed on rural development. The lat- 
est act is, in fact, called a Town Planning and Rural 
Development Act. Mr. Adams would like to see the title 

1 Since the above was written the Canadian Federal Government 
(December, 1918) has announced its intention of making housing 
loans to the Provincial Governments to an aggregate amount of 
$25,000,000. " The amount of loan to any one Province is not to 
exceed the proportion of the said twenty-five milHon dollars which 
the population of the said Province bears to the total population of 
Canada." The time of the loan is not to exceed twenty years. 
The rate of interest is 5 per cent. The Provincial Government may 
build itself or lend the money to a municipality, a limited-dividend 
housing company or an individual building his own home. The re- 
sults of this new policy will be watched with keen interest. 



2o8 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

■* Planning and Development Act " used, so as to cover 
both urban and rural schemes with both vv^ords. It is to 
be hoped that Americans will watch and profit by the 
Canadian example in applying forethought to the develop- 
ment of rural areas. 

The Canadian situation presents certain analogies to 
that of Massachusetts, with its Homestead Commission 
and Town Planning Boards. The Canadians have the 
advantage of more expert leadership. The Massachu- 
setts movement, on the other hand, is really democratic 
in its origin and has the support of union labor to rest 
on. 

So far as the United States are concerned, it is likely, 
for weal or woe, that what is done or left undone in 
Canada will influence us more than ten times the bulk 
of accomplishment in Europe or Australasia. Reforms, 
like measles, spread by contact. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BEGINNINGS OF CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING 
LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES , 

I. THE MASSACHUSETTS HOMESTEAD COMMISSION 

The one tangible result within the United States of 
constructive housing legislation prior to the war, out- 
side the Oklahoma loan experiment, is the Massachusetts 
Homestead Commission. Certain abortive attempts 
and certain preliminary stirrings which may yet bear 
fruit will be noticed later. The most striking thing 
about the Massachusetts Homestead Commission is that 
it was created by and is maintained by union la- 
bor. It is not the work of social economists. It is the 
expression of a profound need, not of a well- formu- 
lated theory. Those who created it did not clearly fore- 
see how it would work out. It may seem to the super- 
ficial observer to have a shifting policy. It really has a 
developing policy. It is rooted in the soil of reality, is 
fundamentally a democratic growth and ought to have 
a long and fruitful life. 

( I ) The First Homestead Commission, ipop 

James H. Mellen, of Worcester, a member of the 
Massachusetts legislature, was responsible for the resolu- 
tion ^ ^^high •br^ated- the^ first -Massachusetts^ Homestead 

a«i^ ft!>f €igli^%cpsi5iialaggt)af ^mrhichpa^^ Ms 

IrieHd^^'^ w^e^^aS-ipfomiit at-tteqtimr^ks^Ctte nmss?^of 

209 



2IO Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

their fellow-countrymen, but in our own National Home- 
stead Act of 1862, which distributed eighty-seven millions 
of acres of public domain to settlers on the $1.25 per 
acre basis. He was impressed by the waste represented 
by the abandoned farms of Massachusetts, and his im- 
agination was fired by the good to health and citizen- 
ship that would result if the State acquired those lands 
at a low figure and distributed them on a homestead basis 
to dwellers in crowded city tenements who had some 
knowledge of agriculture. Increased food production 
and decreased congestion were to go with the benefit to 
the transplanted families. 

The text of the original resolution (Acts 1909, Massa- 
chusetts Legislature, Chap. 143), is as follows: "Re- 
solved, that the governor, with the advice and consent 
of the council, may appoint a commission to be known 
as the Homestead Commission, which shall consist of five 
persons, citizens of the commonwealth, who shall serve 
without compensation, but may incur such expense, not 
exceeding one thousand dollars, as shall be approved by 
the governor and council. It shall be the duty of the 
commission to consider whether it would be expedient 
for the commonwealth to acquire or open for settlement 
lands in country districts with a view of aiding honest, 
industrious and ambitious families of wage earners to 
remove thereto from congested tenement districts of the 
various large cities and towns of the commonwealth, to 
the end that such lands may ultimately pass into the 
possession of the families settling upon them. The com- 
mission shall report statistics showing the probable ex- 
pense to the commonwealth of the undertaking and any 
plans which it may recommend for adoption, together 
with any recommendation for legislation which the com- 
mission may deem proper. The commission shall re- 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 211 

port to the next general court on or before the 15th day 
of January, 19 10. (Approved, June 19, 1909.) 

The result was a disappointment to the sponsors of the 
resolution. The commission found that the abandoned 
farms were being bought up for country estates and those 
still idle were held at a price which made State acquisi- 
tion out of the question. Four of the five members re- 
ported simply that it would be inexpedient for the com- 
monwealth to acquire lands and open them for settle- 
ment at this time. Fortunately for the future of the 
Homestead Commission there was a minority report, in 
which the fifth member, Freeman M. Saltus, expressed 
his conviction of the " feasibility and desirability of the 
commonwealth earnestly undertaking some means 
whereby the working class might acquire homes with the 
assistance of the commonwealth.'* (See Labor Bulle- 
tin No. 88, Jan., 1912, Massachusetts Bureau of Sta- 
tistics.) 

(2) Permanent Homestead Commission, ipii 

Basing their action on this minority report, Mr. Mel- 
len and the labor group introduced a bill in 19 10 to 
create a permanent Homestead Commission, but the bill 
failed to pass. In 191 1 they tried again and were suc- 
cessful. Chap. 607 of the acts of 191 1 is entitled: 
" An Act to provide for establishing with the assistance of 
the commonwealth homesteads for workmen in the sub- 
urbs of cities and towns." 

Section one establishes the Homestead Commission as 
a permanent body. Its members are unpaid except the 
secretary, who devotes his whole time to it. Several 
persons belong to the Commission ex officio, the Di- 
rector of the State Bureau of Statistics, the State Bank 
Commissioner, the President of the Massachusetts Agri- 



212 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

cultural College and a member of the State Board of 
Health, selected by the Board. The Governor is to ap- 
point three other members, one of whom shall be a 
woman and one at least shall represent the laboring class. 
An amendment passed in 19 13 added a lawyer and a city 
planner to the Commission. 

Charles F. Gettemy, Director of the State Bureau 
of Statistics, has been chairman of the Homestead Com- 
mission since its organization, and Henry Sterling has 
been its secretary until the last few months. Mr. Ster- 
ling is a labor man with heart, brain and vision, and 
deserves much of the credit for what has been accom- 
plished by the Homestead Commission so far. 

The act of 191 1 stated clearly that the Homestead 
Commission was to report a bill or bills to the legislature, 
not later than January 10, 19 12, embodying a plan 
whereby, with the assistance of the commonwealth, 
homesteads or small houses with plots of ground might be 
acquired by mechanics, factory employees, laborers and 
others in the suburbs of cities and towns. There was no 
appropriation for or even authorization of any investiga- 
tion of the subject, and at that time information on for- 
eign experience along those lines was scattered and diffi- 
cult to obtain. The Bureau of Statistics here came to the 
rescue and undertook the publication of *' a review of 
work done in other countries similar to that contemplated 
by the act creating the Commission." Labor Bulletin 
No. 88, which appeared in January, 19 12, was the result. 
It was the work of Mr. Sterling, single-handed, except 
the ten pages of bibliography, which was prepared by the 
staff of the bureau. This publication is remarkable as 
the first attempt to sum up the world's experience in 
government aid in the housing of working people. That 
the information is incomplete and that some inaccuracies 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 213 

have crept in should surprise no one. It was a piece of 
pioneer work and a very creditable one. 

With this investigation as a guide, the Commission 
prepared a report and a bill (H. 441, 442, 1912) pro- 
viding that the unclaimed deposits in savings banks which 
had been called into the State Treasury by Chap. 590, 
Sec. 56, Acts 1908, should be loaned to the commission, 
that it should be authorized to acquire a tract or tracts of 
land, and lay out, build, and sell or rent houses thereon. 
The commission was authorized to issue stock not to ex- 
ceed the amount loaned by the Treasurer in shares of 
$10. After paying interest, repairs, contingent fund, etc., 
it could declare dividends. It was to borrow from the 
Treasurer on notes bearing 3 per cent, interest, secured 
by a first lien on all real estate until sold. When a sale 
was made, the amount should be refunded to the Treas- 
ury. Total outstanding notes were not to exceed $300,- 
000. 

The constitutionality of this measure was questioned in 
the legislature, and according to the admirable Massa- 
chusetts custom, which permits opinions on pending bills, 
it was referred to the Supreme Court in May, 19 12. 
On the 25th of the same month the court returned its 
opinion that such use of those or any other public funds 
would be a private and not a public use, and, therefore, 
contrary to the provisions of the constitution. 

The Homestead Commission had come up squarely 
against a blank wall. It was not, however, discouraged. 
It secured this modest piece of legislation (Chap. 714, 
Acts 1912) : "The commission established by chapter 
six hundred and seven of the acts of the year nineteen 
hundred and eleven shall continue its investigation of the 
need of providing homesteads for the people of the com- 
monwealth and its study of plans already in operation or 



214 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

contemplated elsewhere for housing wage earners and 
shall report to the legislature not later than the first 
Wednesday in January, nineteen hundred and thirteen." 
Two thousand dollars was appropriated for its use. 

Mr. Sterling and the union labor forces immediately 
set to work for a constitutional amendment which should 
remove the barrier established by the decision of the 
Supreme Court. The Homestead Commission itself re- 
mained entirely aloof and stated, doubtless correctly, that 
it was no part of its function to change the constitution 
of the State. 

Under the 191 2 act the Commission was directed to 
study the need of providing homesteads and the methods 
of meeting the need in operation elsewhere. The task 
naturally divided itself into two parts. To the first, it 
addressed itself in the report submitted to the legislature 
in January, 19 13 (House Document No. 2,000). To lay 
a foundation for the second, it prepared a series of ques- 
tions which, through the Massachusetts senators, were 
turned over to the Secretary of State, Mr. Knox, who 
forwarded them to diplomatic and consular officials in 
foreign countries. 

The January report consisted of a study of existing 
congestion and mortality statistics and housing sun^eys 
relating to Massachusetts — notably the monumental 
Tenement House Census for Boston gotten out by the 
State Bureau of Statistics in 1891 and 1892 and the re- 
port of Mayor Collins' Commission to Investigate Tene- 
ment House Conditions in Boston, published in 1904. 

The report points out pertinently (page 38) that the 
" 7,368.2 acres of vacant land within Boston's boundaries 
would accommodate about 300,000 persons (about five 
times the number now herded in unfit tenements) in sin- 
gle-family houses with considerable space about them," 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 215 

and concludes that " the problem is one of proper distribu- 
tion of population." A statement follows which might 
well be adopted as the motto of the housing movement. 
" The physical condition of the home is so vitally related 
to the morals, health, and the general well-being of the 
family and the individual that the welfare of the state 
depends upon it. For the safety and progress of the 
commonwealth every family should be housed in a whole- 
some home. The countless indecent, disease-breeding 
habitations menace the stability of the government." 

(3) Town Planning Boards Established, ipi^ 

The commission this year made two recommendations 
(p. 42). I. That planning boards be instituted in each 
city and town of more than 10,000 inhabitants. 2. That 
the commonwealth and community encourage and pro- 
mote the formation of associations to plan and construct 
low cost suburban homes. 

The second recommendation had no tangible result, 
unless we regard the Billerica Garden Suburb, Inc., as a 
product of the Homestead Commission propaganda. 

The first recommendation was embodied in a bill which 
was enacted into law as Chap. 494 of the Acts of 19 13. 
This extremely important piece of legislation provides 
that every city and town of the commonwealth of more 
than 10,000 inhabitants shall have a planning board, ap- 
pointed by the mayor or governing body in cities, elected 
at town meetings in towns. The planning boards are to 
" make careful studies of the resources, possibilities and 
needs of the city or town, particularly with respect to con- 
ditions which may be injurious to the public health in 
connection with rented dwellings, and to make plans for 
the development of the municipality with special refer- 
ence to the proper housing of the people." 



2i6 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Each planning board is to report annually to its city 
council or town meeting and file a copy of its report with 
the Homestead Commission. 

The Homestead Commission is directed to call the 
attention of the mayors of the cities and selectmen of 
the towns to the provisions of the act and to furnish 
the planning boards from time to time with information 
and suggestions. 

Town planning, or city planning, as it is more often 
called in this country, was much in the air in 1913. The 
New Jersey city planning law, the New York law for 
second class cities and the Pennsylvania law for third 
class cities were all passed in that year. But these laws, 
like the subsequent Ohio and California acts, were per- 
missive, whereas the Massachusetts law is compulsory 
and state-wide. The boards, when formed in the other 
states, were local and disconnected, whereas in Massa- 
chusetts, the Homestead Commission, although with- 
out authority, forms a connecting link and an educative 
force and furnishes a framework which might easily be 
developed into an effective centralized control. 

The Massachusetts act, moreover, is the only one start- 
ing from better housing as a prime motive and object. 
Housing is incidental in the other states. 

The history of the Massachusetts Planning Boards is 
worth study. Their growth has been a slow educa- 
tional process. Few, if any, of the planning boards knew 
at first what they were expected to do, or why, or how. 
The first step was to educate the boards, the next for 
the boards to educate their communities. A yearly con- 
ference of planning boards was established, of which 
five have now been held. At the third, which occurred 
in Boston, in 191 5, an organization was formed — the 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 217 

Massachusetts Federation of Planning Boards, which 
elected officers and committees. The subsequent reunions 
have been held under the joint auspices of the Massa- 
chusetts Homestead Commission and the Federation of 
Planning Boards. The 19 16 conference, which the 
writer had the privilege of attending, was held at Spring- 
field and brought together representatives from the forty- 
nine planning boards which had been organized at that 
date, as well as a number of distinguished specialists as 
speakers. The conference lasted for two days, and the 
papers and discussions must have been stimulating and 
helpful to all. There was a City Planning Exhibit, to 
which fifteen cities and towns had contributed. Spring- 
field had a very elaborate display of maps and charts 
showing present conditions of water mains, sewers, tran- 
sit systems, density of population, assessment valuations, 
schools, parks and playgrounds — an admirable founda- 
tion on which to build plans for the future. Salem, 
Lawrence and some others had developed partial plans, 
at least, for future growth. 

The reports showed a wide diversity of accomplish- 
ment on the part of the several boards. Part of this 
was due to a diversity of grasp by the personnel and 
part to the fact that many were working without any ap- 
propriation at all, and nearly all with a very inadequate 
one. 

The planning boards have no authority to enforce 
their plans when they make them. Whether or not they 
should have such authority, and what their relation 
should be to boards of survey and park commissions are 
among the questions discussed. In general, the plan- 
ning boards favor zoning, assessment of betterments and 
excess condemnation. They have helped to get better 



2i8 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

restrictive housing legislation (as the new Springfield 
building code), but their accomplishments in this line 
have not been very striking. 

The small number of cities and towns which have 
neglected to appoint planning boards are for the most 
part, like Fall River and New Bedford, hardened of- 
fenders in bad housing, factory towns with high general 
death-rates and high infant mortality rates, which do 
not wish to be bothered. As the Mayor of Fall River 
said, when urged by the Homestead Commission to com- 
ply with the law and appoint a planning board, ** There 
is no penalty attached to non-compliance with this law, 
so what are you going to do about it? " From the chief 
magistrate of a city, this attitude towards law enforce- 
ment is curiously illuminating. 

Besides holding conferences, the Homestead Com- 
mission has issued a series of bulletins for the informa- 
tion and guidance of planning boards and stands ready 
at all times to help them with information and advice. 

(4) Housing by the Commonwealth 

In the spring of 19 14, what is known as the First An- 
nual Report of the Homestead Commission appeared. 
Two hundred and fifty of its three hundred and twenty- 
five pages were devoted to a summary of foreign hous- 
ing laws and accomplishments compiled from the consu- 
lar returns received through the State Department. Mr. 
Sterling compiled it in five or six months, single-handed, 
except for the help of a Harvard linguist in translating 
the foreign language reports. In estimating this achieve- 
ment, it must be remembered that it antedated by nearly 
a year the elaborate Bulletin 158 of the Federal Bureau of 
Labor Statistics on which a considerable staff had been 
engaged for a much longer period. 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 219 

The demand for this report was so great that it was 
out of print in a few months. 

Included in this pubHcation was the report of the Com- 
mittee on Organization of Housing Companies, recom- 
mending four types of co-partnership associations. As 
before stated, this seed seems to have fallen on barren 
ground. 

The Homestead Commission was now embarking on a 
new line of activity, looking to the instruction of famil- 
ies in agriculture as a relief to unemployment and con- 
gestion. Legislation was secured directing the State 
Board of Education to investigate how great was the 
demand for such instruction. A canvass of five hundred 
typical tenement families in the North End and West 
End of Boston was made, and one hundred and sixty- 
eight of them, or about 33 per cent., expressed a desire 
for such instruction and to remove to suburban or rural 
life. Assuming that the number who would persist in 
such a plan was much less, it still seemed enough to base 
action on, and a bill was prepared, which, after failing 
in 19 1 5, became Chap. 185 of the Acts of the following 
year — (An Act to authorize cities to maintain schools 
of Agriculture and Horticulture, approved May 9, 1916). 
" Any city which accepts the provisions of this act may 
establish and maintain schools for instructing families 
and individuals by means of day, part-time, or evening 
classes, in gardening, fruit growing, floriculture, poultry- 
keeping, animal husbandry and other branches of 
agriculture and horticulture." The whole project is 
entrusted to the local school authorities, who may 
purchase land and where necessary erect houses for 
the accommodation of the families under their instruc- 
tion. 

Whether this experiment of the Homestead Commis- 



220 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

sion will produce any considerable results still remains 
to be seen. 

Meanwhile Mr. Sterling and the labor group had put 
their constitutional amendment through two legislatures, 
and it was approved by the voters on November 2, 19 15. 
It reads as follows : " The general court shall have 
power to authorize the commonwealth to take land and 
to hold, improve, subdivide, build upon and sell the same 
for the purpose of relieving congestion of population and 
providing homes for citizens; provided, however, that 
this amendment shall not be deemed to authorize the sale 
of such land or buildings at less than the cost thereof." 

In view of the adoption of this constitutional amend- 
ment, the Homestead Commission asked the legislature 
of 19 1 6 for authority to conduct a careful and conserva- 
tive experiment in suburban housing. The bill, after 
passing the house, was lost by a tie vote in the senate. 
In 19 1 7 the bill passed, though the appropriation of 
$100,000, which had been asked for, was cut to $50,000. 
As the first American law for a direct state housing en- 
terprise, its provisions are worth quoting. 

" The Homestead Commission is authorized ... to 
take or purchase a tract or tracts of land for the purpose 
of providing homesteads or small houses and plots of 
ground for mechanics, wage earners, or others, citizens of 
this commonwealth ; and may hold, improve, subdivide, 
build upon, sell, repurchase, manage and care for the 
said tract or tracts and the buildings constructed thereon, 
in accordance with such terms and conditions as may be 
determined by the Commission." 

The Commission selected a seven-acre tract in an ac- 
cessible part of Lowell, laid it out on garden city lines, 
and built twelve detached and semi-detached four- and 
five-room-and-bath frame houses, each with at least 2,000 



Beginnings of Constructive Hotcsing Legislation 221 

square feet of garden space/ which were expected to 
be occupied before planting time in 1918, but were de- 
layed by war conditions. 

They are to be sold on long time easy payments ($18 a 
month for a $2,400 house and lot), and title is to pass 
when 20 per cent, of the purchase price is paid. The 
Fourth Annual Report of the Commission is devoted to 
house plans and amortization tables in anticipation of 
this project, and the Fifth Annual Report gives the lat- 
est information as to its progress. 

The present time with its abnormally high building 
costs, is extremely unfavorable for the undertaking. The 
Commission had expected to sell a house and garden for 
$2,000. It could have done so a year earlier. The best 
it can sell for now will be $2,400. Interest is charged 
at 5 per cent. The debt will be extinguished in from 
sixteen to twenty-seven years, according to whether the 
purchaser or the Commission pays taxes and insurance. 

Even so, the demonstration is well worth making, and 
the great number of applications for houses received be- 
fore building was fairly started shows how much differ- 
ence there is between cost rates and market rates. 

Quite obviously, what the Homestead Commission is 
engaged in, is an educational experiment or demonstra- 
tion in housing, not an attempt to supply the needs of the 
commonwealth. Whatever its original plans may have 
been, it has now no idea of undertaking such a task. 
Even the labor group, with their firm belief in govern- 
ment aid for housing, have come to see that a state com- 
mission is not the best agency to build workingmen's 
homes. They have decided to work for municipal hous- 
ing. By inadvertence, so far as they were concerned, 
their 19 15 amendment gave authority to conduct housing 

1 The total area of the lots averages 4,500 square feet each. 



222 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

enterprises only to the commonwealth. So another con- 
stitutional amendment was necessary. In the fall of 
19 1 7 the constitutional convention adopted, and on No- 
vember sixth, the voters ratified the following amend- 
ment : 

" Article XLVII. The maintenance and distribution 
at reasonable rates, during time of war, public exigency, 
emergency or distress of a sufficient supply of food and 
other common necessaries of life and the providing of 
shelter are public functions, and the commonwealth and 
the cities and towns therein, may take and may provide 
the same for their inhabitants in such manner as the gen- 
eral court shall determine." 

On the basis of the shelter clause, a bill has been pre- 
pared (Senate No. 87) — a labor bill, not a Homestead 
Commission bill, be it understood, — directing cities and 
towns to build homesteads on land sold for non-pay- 
ment of taxes and sell or rent them to citizens with de- 
pendent children, owning less than $1,000 in real estate 
or other property, who make application therefor. The 
future of this bill will be watched with interest. 

To sum up, the Massachusetts Homestead Commis- 
sion is now conducting the first state housing enterprise 
in continental North America and it established in 191 3 
the first state-wide system of official town planning 
boards. 

2. OTHER BEGINNINGS AND ATTEMPTS AT BEGINNINGS 

( I ) California Commission of Immigration and Housing 

Calling the Massachusettes Homestead Commission 
the only tangible result of constructive housing legisla- 
tion in the United States, it was said at the beginning of 
this chapter that there were, besides, certain preliminary 



Beginnings of Constructive Hotising Legislation 223 

stirrings which may produce future results and a few 
abortive efforts which failed to produce anything. 

Of the former, the agency with the largest potentiality 
of usefulness is undoubtedly the California Commission 
of Immigration and Housing. This body of five serv- 
ing without pay, was created by the legislature of 19 13 
(Chap. 318). Its proponents were interested in the 
immigration side only, and the enlargement of its scope 
to include housing is said to be the result of the persistent 
and enthusiastic work of one woman, — Katherine Felton, 
of San Francisco. (Second Report of San Francisco 
Housing Association, 19 13.) 

Its first report appeared January 2, 19 15. The Com- 
mission had dealt energetically with housing and sanita- 
tion in labor camps and had produced very real improve- 
ments. 

It had undertaken a preliminary survey of tenement 
house and lodging house problems in San Francisco and 
helped secure two housing inspectors. There had been 
none before. It had made brief investigations of hous- 
ing conditions in Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, and 
a number of other medium-sized towns, and found much 
to condemn, but reported that Los Angeles and San 
Diego were handling their local problems in a commend- 
able spirit. 

All this, of course, has to do with restrictive legisla- 
tion and its enforcement. But at the end of the report 
is a section on Constructive Housing, where the idea 
is expressed that it is not enough to point out bad condi- 
tions and defects in law enforcement. The Commission 
must do something to stimulate the supply of good houses. 
They have sent an expert East to find out what is being 
done along this line and have assembled an exhibit to 
arouse public interest. 



224 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

The Second Annual Report, which appeared on Janu- 
ary 2, 19 16, showed considerable progress in the labor 
camp situation and contained more elaborate studies of 
housing conditions, Fresno, Stockton and Los Angeles 
coming in for the lion's share of attention. Legislation 
obtained in 191 5 had strengthened the hands of the Com- 
mission in law enforcement. But it is above all in the 
section on Constructive Housing (pp. 306-316) that the 
progress of the Commission's own point of view is best 
shown. It has come under the influence of Thomas 
Adams and the town planners and quotes with approval 
his words : " In the sense in which it is used in Great 
Britain, and in the sense in which it has lately come to 
be understood in America, it (i. e., town planning), 
is really more important than the housing problem, or 
the sanitary problem, or the transportation problem, since 
it includes all these and more, and provides the only sat- 
isfactory method of studying and dealing with the inter- 
relation of these problems with one another." Cali- 
fornia obtained a permissive act (Chap. 428, Statutes of 
1915), under which cities may create planning commis- 
sions. A city planning conference and exhibit were held, 
in which the Commission of Immigration and Housing 
took part. 

The Commission has been studying the New Zealand 
Advances to Workers Act and points out that the step 
from rural credit legislation to such an act in the United 
States would be easy and logical. 

Moreover it has discovered the Massachusetts Home- 
stead Commission and quotes approvingly from its First 
Annual Report : " The statistical data collected by the 
Commission tend to show that nowhere in the world has 
the problem of providing houses for w^orkingmen been 
solved by the private initiative of landowners and builders 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 225 

alone; government aid or mutual operations have been 
necessary." 

The final paragraph of the section is the most signifi- 
cant of all : " The Commission of Immigration and 
Housing is convinced that Massachusetts is working 
along the right lines in constructive housing, v^ith its 
compulsory city planning commissions and with this new 
state aid in providing housing. Certainly the experi- 
ments that are being carried on there are deserving of 
very careful observation, and it is to be hoped that the 
time is not far distant when California will be so aroused 
to the need for preventive housing measures that it will 
follow Massachusetts in this work." 

Given the progressive atmosphere of California, the 
local habit of seeing in the large and acting corre- 
spondingly, and the quickening of the public social con- 
science by the presence of women voters, it would not 
be surprising to see California leading rather than fol- 
lowing Massachusetts in the not distant future. 

(2) Oklahoma Home Ownership Loan Law 

One more instance of constructive state effort should 
be noted. Oklahoma has a 191 5 law to promote home 
ownership, which authorizes and instructs the Commis- 
sioners of the Land Office to invest money from the sale 
of State Educational Institution lands in loans not ex- 
ceeding $2,000 to any one individual or family, to build 
a home or pay off a mortgage on one. Land to twice the 
value of the loan must be owned by the borrower, and 
4 per cent, of the face value of the loan must be paid 
semi-annually. Out of this, 6 per cent, interest is taken 
on the unpaid balance, the remainder going to reduce the 
principal. The debt is extinguished in 23% years. To 
increase the funds available for these loans, the commis- 



226 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

sioners may sell the notes given for loans at par and 
accrued interest. They may also issue 5 per cent, bonds, 
using the notes as security. As the State is not to be 
liable for these bonds, it would hardly seem that they 
would find a ven,- ready market. In 19 17, this act was 
amended, reducing the interest rate on unpaid balance of 
loan to 5 per cent., the time of repayment to twenty 
years, and the rate of interest to be paid on Home Owner- 
ship bonds to 4 per cent. 

In reply to an inquiry' addressed to the Commissioners 
of the Land Office, the following information was given 
under date of March 26, 1918: 

" The total number of loans made in the Home Owner- 
ship Di\nsion at close of business Februars' 28, was 215, 
aggregating $253,800, outstanding $237,431.37. In- 
vested in other securities, provided by law, 8764,000. 
... As yet the Department has not issued Home Owner- 
ship bonds." 

This is a real beginning and will be followed with in- 
terest. The 19 17 amendment is in the right direction so 
far as rate of interest is concerned. Evidently the law is 
for the benefit of farmers, not wage earners, but in an 
agricultural state like Oklahoma, the limitation is of less 
importance. The writer confesses to a distrust, perhaps 
not fully justified, of the various schemes of note-selling 
and bond issuing whose object seems to be to make one 
dollar do the work of three — a procedure seldom finan- 
cially sound. 

(Bunn's Annotated Supplement to the Revised Laws of 
Oklahoma, 191 5, Chap. 69, Public Lands, Article V-A, 
State Loans, Public Funds, Home Ownership, 7226e- 
7226n — also pamphlet issued by Commissioners of the 
Land Office, State of Oklahoma, Laws Governing the 
Sale and Leasing of State and School Lands.) 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 227 

(3) Borland-Pomerene Housing Loan Bill for the Dis- 
trict of Columbia 

Abortive efforts at legislation are hardly worth re- 
calling except in so far as they indicate an incipient pub- 
lic opinion capable of future growth. 

As far back as 1908 the report of President Roosevelt's 
Homes Commission for the District of Columbia con- 
tained the following resolution : '' That in the opinion 
of this Commission the Congress of the United States 
should authorize the loan of money, at a low rate of in- 
terest, to building associations organized for the pur- 
pose of building sanitary homes for the working classes 
in the National Capital; satisfactory real estate security 
to be given for the repayment of such loans and suitable 
provisions enacted to ensure moderate dividends upon 
the capital invested in such enterprises, and low rentals 
for the houses constructed, in order that they may be 
within the means of unskilled wage earners.'' (Presi- 
dent's Homes Commission, Report of the Committee on 
Improvement of Existing Houses and Elimination of In- 
sanitary and Alley Houses, p. 23.) 

No effort was made to carry out this recommendation 
until 19 1 3, when in connection with the bill for the elim- 
ination of residential alleys presented by the Committee 
of Fifty, the present writer drafted a bill subsequently 
known as the Borland-Pomerene Housing Loan Bill. 
This bill had the support of the late General George L. 
Sternberg, who had been chairman of the President's 
Homes Commission, and of many other friends of better 
housing in Washington. It was introduced in the House 
by Representative Wm. P. Borland, of Missouri (63rd 
Congress, ist Session, H. R. 7971) and in the Senate by 
Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio (S. 4672). The bills 
were referred to the senate and house committees on the 



228 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

District of Columbia respectively. Two hearings were 
held before the full committee of the House in the spring 
of 19 14 and one before a Senate sub-committee, but in 
neither case was the bill reported out. Mr. Borland and 
Senator Pomerene reintroduced the bill in the second 
session of the 63rd Congress, but without result. In the 
64th Congress Senator Pomerene persisted with the bill 
(S. 2229), while Mr. Borland introduced a new bill of 
wider scope, which he had drawn up, after consultation 
with the writer and others (H. R. 6841, Jan. 4, 19 16). 
This bill provided for the loan of money to non-commer- 
cial housing companies, as did the earlier bill, but it 
also authorized the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia to build houses themselves for rent or sale to 
workingmen, and it further authorized the loan of money 
to individual workingmen for the purpose of building 
their own homes. 

No real progress was ever made with either bill. 

One by-product of considerable potential importance, 
however, was the interest aroused in the District of 
Columbia Central Labor Union and among the national 
officers of the American Federation of Labor by the 
Borland-Pomerene bill. This resulted in a resolution 
presented to the National Convention of the American 
Federation of Labor at Philadelphia in November, 19 14, 
by Mr. Nolda, a delegate from the District of Columbia, 
and adopted by that body, to .the effect that it favored 
" the passage of laws that will bring about a system of 
government loans of money for municipal and private 
ownership of sanitary houses " and requested " The 
United States Government at Washington to pass such 
legislation as will serve as a model to the various cities 
of the country." ^ 
1 Housing is found in the Reconstruction Program of the Ameri- 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 229 

(4) Buchanan Postal Savings Deposits Housing Loan 
Bill 

Another abortive effort, national in its scope, was a 
bill introduced by Representative Buchanan in November, 
19 1 3 (H. R. 8472), and reintroduced in 191 5 (H. R. 
no), providing that postal savings deposits might be 
used for housing loans to workingmen. The one tangible 
result of this bill was that it led to the preparation and 
publication by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics of 
the invaluable Bulletin 158 so often quoted in the pre- 
ceding chapter. 

3. DEVELOPMENTS WHICH WILL FIT IN WITH A 
CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING PROGRAM 

( I ) Tozvn Planning Legislation in the United States 

If we take a sufficiently broad view of constructive 
housing legislation, we might, indeed, find considerable 
accomplishment in the United States along the lines of 
town planning and zoning. 

Both subjects are closely connected with constructive 
housing efforts, yet are rather connecting links with 
other activities than subdivisions. The subject chosen 
being already too broad for adequate treatment, we must 
be content here with the briefest summary. 

Washington and Philadelphia were planned at the 
beginning, and Robert Fleming Gourley made " Plans 
for Enlarging and Improving the City of Boston " in 
1843, but i^ the modern sense American city planning 
dates from the nineties, and the creation of the Metro- 
can Federation of Labor. On January 15, 1919, the Federation re- 
quested Congress to inaugurate ** a plan by which the Government 
may build model homes for workers, and to establish a system of 
credits by which workers may build their own homes." 



230 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

politan Park Commission for Boston and its environs in 
1892 was its first large achievement. 

In its early stages in this country, city planning was 
largely an effort of architects to create a city beautiful, 
the most potent influence being, perhaps, the Haussman 
reconstruction of Paris. Later, the influence of the 
English town planners made itself felt, and the con- 
nection with housing and social betterment became more 
apparent. 

There are now five states which have laws permitting 
cities to appoint official planning boards — New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and California, besides 
Massachusetts, which requires them to do so. None of 
these laws was passed earlier than 19 13. The Pennsyl- 
vania boards have formed a federation on the model of 
the Massachusetts federation, but they lack a Homestead 
Commission. Five other states (Indiana, Michigan, 
North Carolina, Texas and Utah), are working for simi- 
lar legislation. 

A great deal has been accomplished by privately or- 
ganized city planning commissions. An example is the 
Chicago city plan prepared by the late Daniel C. Burn- 
ham, and presented to the city in 1909 by the Commercial 
Club, which was adopted by the city and is in process of 
being carried out ('' City Planning Progress," 19 17, ed- 
ited by George B. Ford and Ralph F. Warner). 

American cities which have adopted comprehensive 
city plans are numbered by the score, but in very few 
has housing improvement played anything but a minor 
role. 

(2) Zoning and Districting in the United States 

If town planning came to us from France and England, 
zoning came from Germany. It was the German cities 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 231 

which first established residence, business and industrial 
zones, and regulated the height of buildings, and the per- 
centage of a lot that might be built upon in the respective 
districts. Boston (1892 and 1904) and Baltimore 
(1904) were pioneers in regulating the height of build- 
ings, and the courts sustained them. (See Welch vs. 
Swasey, 193 Massachusetts 364, affirmed by 214 U. S. 91, 
May 17, 1909.) Los Angeles blazed the way in creat- 
ing residence districts in which objectionable occupations 
could not be carried on, and the courts, in the Chinese 
laundry case (1911) and Brickyard case (1913), sus- 
tained the restrictions. 

The adoption of zoning by the city of New York is 
one of the most remarkable civic achievements of recent 
years. In 19 13, as a result of the efforts of President 
McAneny of the Borough of Manhattan, the New York 
Board of Estimate and Apportionment appointed a 
Heights of Building Commission which was reorganized 
the following year as a Commission on Building Districts 
and Restrictions, after the city charter had been amended 
to permit such districting. Edward M. Bassett was 
chairman of both commissions, which included such men 
as Lawson Purdy, George B. Ford and Robert H. Whit- 
ten. They did a remarkably thorough piece of work 
studying what had been done abroad and at home and 
applying the adopted principles, patiently and in detail 
to New York, after sixty or more public hearings. Not 
the least remarkable part of the commission's work was 
the education of public opinion which it carried on. 
They divided the city into three types of districts, resi- 
dence only, residence and business only, and unrestricted. 
These restrictions were not retroactive, but applied only 
to future buildings and conversions. Three height 
zones were established — the down town Manhattan sky- 



27,2 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

scraper district, where buildings might be two and a 
half times the width of the street in height, the bulk of 
the business district of the city, where they could be 
twice the width of the street, and the remainder, where 
they could not exceed one and a half times the width of 
the street. Five zones were established for the percen- 
tage of lot area that might be built upon, ranging from 
the A, or warehouse, district to the E district of de- 
tached villas where only 40 per cent, of the ground can be 
covered on the ground level, including porches, and 30 
per cent, above the first story. 

The recommendations were embodied in an ordinance 
which went into effect on July 25, 19 16. 

Sacramento and Berkeley, California, also have zoning 
ordinances. 

Philadelphia and Minneapolis have appointed zoning 
commissions, which are at work, and a dozen or more 
cities are agitating the subject. 

The stabilization of land values certain to follow from 
the protection of residence districts and the limitation 
of height and areas will not be the least of the good 
results to follow from the zoning system. 

(3) Building and Loan Associations in the United 
States 

If zoning and town planning offer a means of com- 
munity control essential to the successful carrying out of 
constructive housing programs, we have also in the 
United States, a remarkable agency, ready to hand, which 
has attained colossal growth and could easily be made to 
handle government loans for the housing of working- 
men. I refer to the American Building and Loan Asso- 
ciations. At the convention of the United States League 
of Local Building and Loan Associations held in St. 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 233 

Louis in July, 19 16, it was announced that there were at 
that date 6,806 such associations in the United States 
with a membership of 3,334,899 and assets of $1,484,- 
205>875. The year before at the San Francisco conven- 
tion, it was stated that over 700,000 houses had been 
built or acquired in the United States through the help 
of the Building and Loan Associations. (Proceedings 
23rd Annual Convention of the U. S. League of Building 
and Loan Associations. Address by T. W. Gardiner, p. 
67 et seq.) 

An institution of such magnitude must have had al- 
ready an important influence on housing in America, 
though a study of the literature of the subject reveals that 
it has never reached the unskilled labor class. Among 
skilled workers, clerks, book-keepers, teachers and other 
poorly paid professional groups, it has filled a large want 
in an acceptable way and certainly should disprove the 
often repeated statement that Americans are too indi- 
vidualistic to succeed in cooperative enterprises. 

The first American Building and Loan Associations 
grew up in and around Philadelphia, 1831 being the date 
of the earliest, the Provident Building Association. The 
idea was imported from England, where there had been 
building clubs since the Birmingham club was founded in 
1795. They spread slowly at first in the United States, 
only nine having been organized up to 1863. Rapid de- 
velopment did not come until after 1880. 

The classic work on the subject is Seymour Dexter's 
" Treatise on Cooperative Savings and Loan Associa- 
tions " of 1891. There is also a Department of Labor 
Report on Building and Loan Associations of 1893. 
The subject is more briefly presented in a monograph by 
W. F. Willoughby prepared for the U. S. Commission to 
the Paris Exposition in 1900. For more recent develop- 



234 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

ments there are the proceedings of the annual conven- 
tions of the United States League of Local Building and 
Loan Associations already referred to. 

American Building and Loan Associations have al- 
ways suffered because of their dual object — (i) to pro- 
vide a good investment (i. e. a high rate of interest as 
w^ell as security) for the savings of their members and 
(2) ready money at a low rate of interest for their 
members who desire to build. The former motive has 
generally held the upper hand because all members had 
savings invested, while only some wanted to build. State 
laws and the general decline of interest rates have held 
this tendency in check, and the high premiums formerly 
paid for loans are fast disappearing. But the basic in- 
terest rate (without any premium) is 6 per cent., (only 
a very few organizations, mostly in Massachusetts, make 
loans at 5 per cent.), and the all-but-universal time re- 
quirement is completion of payment in two hundred 
monthly installments, or sixteen and one-half years. It is 
further usually required that the borrower shall own his 
land to start with. It will thus be readily seen that, use- 
ful as the system is for those of moderate means, it is out 
of the reach of the unskilled wage earner. 

The whole system, however, offers an instrumentality, 
which with government aid in the form of loans, given 
only to those associations which met specified require- 
ments, might well be adapted to fit many of the needs of 
unskilled labor. Its possibilities for usefulness should 
on no account be overlooked by the student of housing.^ 

4. WAR HOUSING BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

These activities represent constructive housing, direct 
and indirect, on a large scale. Undertaken merely as a 

1 For a further discussion of this subject, see Chap. VIII, pp. 268, 
269. 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 235 

war emergency measure, they do not imply a permanent 
housing policy. Had the war lasted longer, they might 
have produced one. Now they can, at most, contribute 
towards forming a preliminary public opinion. Mean- 
while the speculative builders and tenement house own- 
ers, who see their interests threatened should working- 
men become accustomed to living in a better type of 
house, are raising the cry of extravagance and trying to 
get Congress to call a halt on all unfinished housing 
projects. 

The situation at the opening of 19 19 is, very briefly, as 
follows : 

Federal housing work has been carried on by three 
executive agencies, the Emergency Fleet Corporation, the 
Department of Labor and the Ordnance Department. 

The Ordnance Department, although it has produced 
housing of a sort for about 45,000 people, need not de- 
tain us, for most of its projects were of a strictly tem- 
porary character, and it has depended largely on bar- 
racks and dormitories. Its further activities were to 
have passed to the Department of Labor. 

The Bureau of Industrial Housing created in the De- 
partment of Labor, after the passage of the first ap- 
propriation in June, 19 18, was placed under the direc- 
tion of Otto M. Eidlitz, the author of the reports re- 
ferred to in Chapter I. This Bureau organized and 
worked through the United States Housing Corporation, 
which was to build and also to manage the completed 
communities. This was to be, therefore, a direct gov- 
ernment enterprise. 

At the time the armistice was signed in November, 
19 1 8, it had eighty-nine projects decided on. Of these, 
fifty-five, not yet under way, only slightly advanced, or 
in places where there would be no peace-time demand 



236 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

for them, were at once abandoned, and fourteen more 
curtailed, leaving twenty projects which the Housing 
Corporation will carry out as planned if Congress will 
permit it to do so.^ 

The Emergency Fleet Corporation has a department 
of Transportation and Housing under the direction of A. 
Merritt Taylor. Having received its appropriation four 
months earlier than the Department of Labor, it was in a 
more advantageous position when the armistice was 
signed. Some curtailments were arranged for, but in 
general it is understood that its twenty-four housing 
projects will be carried out very nearly as planned. At 
the beginning of January, 19 19, Mr. Taylor in a report 
called for by a Senate resolution, stated that these twenty- 
four projects involve the building of 8,949 individual 
houses, 1,119 apartments, 19 dormitories and eight 
hotels. The allotments for these projects aggregated 
$65,883,845, and they are calculated to house 27,732 
shipyard workers and their families, or a total of 55,324 
individuals. At the date of the report, 3,800 of these 
buildings were already completed and the rest in an ad- 
vanced state of construction. Yorkship village in the 
outskirts of Camden, New Jersey, is the largest and per- 
haps the best of these developments. 

In the case of Hog Island, Bristol and Essington, 
Pennsylvania, and Sparrows Point, Maryland, all early 
projects, the Emergency Fleet Corporation built on land 
of which it was owner. It soon, however, developed the 
policy of making loans to housing companies organized 
by the employers or by groups of local business men. 

1 In March, 1919, it appears that the Housing Corporation will be 
allowed to complete twenty-five projects, involving the erection 
of 5,624 single-family dwellings, besides apartments, dormitories and 
hotels. 



Beginnings of Constructive Housing Legislation 237 

The housing company owned the land, the Shipping 
Board lent the whole building cost at 5 per cent. It also 
made the plans and performed the construction work. 
Management passed to the housing company on com- 
pletion of the buildings, but remained subject to the ap- 
proval of the Shipping Board. The Government is pro- 
tected by bond and mortgage, but has agreed to shoulder 
excess war costs, to be appraised later, but not to exceed 
30 per cent, of the total. 

It is too soon to compare the relative merits of the di- 
rect government building and management plan adopted 
by the Department of Labor and the indirect system of 
loans and control of standards adopted by the Emergency 
Fleet Corporation. The rivalry between them would 
probably have proved mutually beneficial as has been the 
case abroad. 

It is altogether too soon to appraise the effect of the 
government war housing projects either on American 
housing standards or on our housing policies. It can 
hardly fail to be large. It may prove decisive. 



CHAPTER VII 

OBJECTIONS TO CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING 
LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

I. PRESUMPTION IN FAVOR OF CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING 
LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES 

In an earlier chapter the conclusion was reached that 
the housing problems of foreign countries and of the 
United States are very similar. Dark rooms, dampness, 
dilapidation, overcrowding, inadequate toilet arrange- 
ments, insufficient water supply, basement and cellar 
dwellings are found and have the same injurious effect on 
health and family life on this side of the Atlantic as on 
the other. Such differences as exist are of degree rather 
than of kind. 

The agencies we have for correcting these evils, while 
they have been helpful and must be energetically con- 
tinued, have proved their inability to solve the problem 
alone. Restrictive housing legislation prevents super- 
latively bad conditions. It cannot produce good ones. 
Neither philanthropic model housing nor employers' 
model housing can or should be depended on to do more 
than help set standards. We neither want to make the 
workingman dependent on private philanthropy for his 
home nor limit his industrial freedom by having him 
receive it from his employer. The commercial builder 
is not attracted by any possible profit in catering to the 
unskilled worker where restrictive laws impose even 
fairly satisfactory standards, and there is no prospect of 

238 



Objections to Constructive Hotising Legislation 239 

the conditions improving. The tendency, on the con- 
trary, is for building costs to increase and hence for rents 
to increase or profits to diminish. If our modern civ- 
ilization requires workers to congregate in cities and the 
great value of land there puts the control of their own 
housing out of the hands of these workers and good 
housing out of their reach, then it would seem logical 
that housing should be accepted as a community problem 
— as a public service, even as water, light, transit, edu- 
cation or recreation — to be controlled and regulated and 
where necessary owned and managed by the community. 

We have seen that community activity in housing has 
been tried out in England, Belgium and Germany for 
nearly thirty years and that valuable results have been 
secured. France, Italy, Austria and a number of other 
European countries have adopted the principles and 
adapted the methods of the pioneer states, and have ob- 
tained similar results. Several Latin-American coun- 
tries have made a beginning. New Zealand, and more 
recently Australia, have shown that government aid in 
housing is as well adapted to the needs of a new, thinly 
settled and extremely democratic community as it has 
proved itself to be in the congested cities of the old world. 

The presumption is clearly in favor of our trying it 
out in the United States. Certain small beginnings had 
been made before our entrance into the world war. The 
necessities of the war have forced the National Govern- 
ment into housing. Should the policy be continued after 
peace is restored? And if so, in what form? Previous 
to the war, every suggestion of government aid in hous- 
ing had encountered strong opposition. We must now 
examine the grounds of this opposition with some care. 
To what extent is it founded on logic? To what ex- 
tent is it merely prejudice or inertia? 



240 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

The objections raised fall under five heads, which may 
be called constitutional, economic, social, philosophic 
and pessimistic. 

2. THE CONSTITUTIONAL OBJECTION 

The constitutional objection has several aspects based 
(i) on the limitations imposed on the National Govern- 
ment in local matters by the federal constitution, (2) 
on the assertion that government aid in housing would 
be class legislation, (3) that it would involve an unwar- 
ranted extension of the police power. 

( I ) Limits of the Federal Constitution 

We admit at once that a national housing act similar 
to the British Housing of the Working Class Act, or 
the Belgian, Italian or Dutch housing laws would be im- 
possible in the United States. So far as these contain 
restrictive or mandatory features. Congress has no 
power to legislate along such lines for the several states. 
The state is the largest unit which may impose restric- 
tive standards, the largest unit which may lay definite 
obligations on local authorities in respect to such a 
purely local matter as housing. On the administrative 
side also, we could not have a hierarchy of local housing 
committees subordinate to a national body. But we may 
easily have a state system analogous to the state and local 
boards of health. 

An ingenious advocate of housing reform on a na- 
tional scale might indeed have proposed a law for- 
bidding interstate commerce in goods manufactured by 
persons who were not housed in a sanitary m.anner if 
the federal child labor law had been sustained by the 
courts. There might even conceivably be some way of 
connecting it up with the federal control of postal routes, 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 241 

But the writer is not advocating tours de force of this 
kind and is inclined to beHeve that it would be better to 
amend the constitution where it fails to meet the needs 
of the time rather than to stretch it close to the breaking 
point to cover the new exigency. 

After accepting the limitations which frankness com- 
pels us to admit are imposed by the constitution, there 
still remains much which the National Government may 
do. There is nothing to prevent a Federal Housing Loan 
Act, even as we already have a Federal Farm Loan Act. 
Moreover, the Federal Government through its lending 
power could exert a very strong influence on local stand- 
ards, as has been done for years through the allotment of 
funds for agricultural education, and as is being now 
undertaken on a broader scale in connection with the 
Smith-Hiughes Vocational Education Act.^ Under an 
efficient federal agency, this influence ought to have, for 
all practical purposes, a determining effect, since the de- 
sire to participate in the benefits of a national loan would 
be a very strong spur to laggard communities to come 
up to the required standard. 

If it be urged that the need of depending on state 
housing laws rather than national will produce a diver- 
sity of standards and be a serious handicap to efficiency, 
we may be content to point to German achievements in 
housing, which have been brought about under a similar 
system of state laws of widely divergent content. 

(2) Class Legislation 

It is sometimes said that government intervention to 
produce houses for workingmen would be class legisla- 
tion and therefore unconstitutional. " Class legislation " 
is really only a bogie. It is a term of opprobrium used 
by the lawyer of the opposition. There is nothing in the 

1 See also Sidney Webb's " Grants in Aid." 



242 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

constitution that prohibits class legislation. Our statute 
books are full of it. We could not possibly get along 
without it. As Professor Freund says in " The Police 
Power" (p. 755), ''Classification, and therefore class 
legislation, has not yet been abolished ; it is merely placed 
under judicial control." He summarizes the trend of 
judicial decisions as follows: "When a restraint is 
confined to a special class of acts or occupations, that 
class must present the danger dealt with in a more 
marked and uniform degree than the classes omitted; 
and when a restraint is general, with certain exceptions, 
the excepted classes must either be entirely free from the 
danger, or the exception must tend to reduce the general 
danger, or a distinct and legitimate public policy must 
favor the toleration of the evil under circumstances 
where it is outweighed by great benefits. The decisions 
of the Supreme Court of the United States seem to be in 
accordance with these principles." 

The class legislation argument is based on that part 
of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution which 
says : " Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, 
liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny 
to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection 
of the laws." 

As Freund says in this connection : " The principle of 
equality has this great difficulty : it cannot mean that all 
persons must under all circumstances be treated alike, but 
it can only mean that equal conditions must receive equal 
treatment. But what constitutes inequality of condition? 
. . . Only a practical and concrete treatment of the 
problem can produce workable theories. . . . The idea 
of equality excludes in principle both particular burdens 
and special privileges, but admits of reasonable classifica- 
tion." 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 243 

It is quite likely that special care would be needed' in 
this country in the wording of constructive housing leg- 
islation. The use of the term " working classes " would 
be quite foreign to the spirit of our legal phraseology, 
and even such a term as working people might prove 
troublesome. Our wording should be such as would in- 
clude those clerical and mercantile workers whose earn- 
ings are as low as the earnings of the industrial workers 
whom most of us think of first. The annual-income 
definition of beneficiaries, as in the Italian, New Zealand 
and Australian laws, is probably the fairest to all. 

There is surely no reason in equity why houses should 
not be provided at cost for the groups which need them, 
even as institutional care is provided for orphans but 
denied to children with parents, or dispensary service is 
limited to those who are unable to pay for it. 

Those who opposed the limitation of hours of work 
and the prohibition of night work for women and chil- 
dren have always called these measures class legislation ; 
but the courts have held that there were physiological 
reasons which made such special protection justifiable in 
the interest of public health. 

(3) Police Power 

Certain opponents of constructive housing legislation 
have been accustomed to claim that the building of dwell- 
ing houses or the loan of money for building purposes 
by the state or municipality would be an unwarranted 
extension of the police power. 

We have here a confusion of thought. Freund (" The 
Police Power," p. iii) defines the police power as " the 
power of promoting the public welfare by restraining 
and regulating the use of liberty and property.*' He 
makes a sharp distinction (pp. 17, 18) between " state 



244 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

activity which restrains and commands " and " that 
which renders aid and service." He gives as examples of 
the former, sanitary and building regulations, compul- 
sory school attendance and regulation of the traffic, and 
of the latter, drainage, hospitals, fire service, schools and 
public roads. " Both classes of activity," he says, 
" serve the public welfare, but for the sake of clearness 
the term police power should preferably be confined to 
the power which operates by restraint and compulsion." 

Obviously restrictive housing legislation is an exercise 
of the police power, which the courts have sustained and 
will continue to sustain in so far as it makes clear its 
connection with public health. 

Quite as clearly, constructive housing legislation would 
come under the second group, which renders aid and 
service. 

Even if this distinction did not exist, constructive hous- 
ing legislation would be no worse off than restrictive. It 
would only, and quite justly, be obliged to establish its 
relation to public health. But Freund makes it quite 
clear that " objects may be pursued through the corporate 
activity of the state, for which the police power may not 
be exercised." Thus, " public moneys may be expended 
for the embellishment of public grounds and buildings, 
and generally for the support of art and science, while it 
would be unconstitutional to require an owner to arrange 
his property with a view to aesthetic effect. . . . Indi- 
vidual liberty is regarded as more important than the 
advancement of interests which, while admittedly public, 
are not urgent or primary; but the issue of liberty is not 
regarded as primarily involved in the expenditure of 
public funds." 

According to Freund, the test to be applied is whether 
a given object is sufficiently public to justify the expendi- 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 245 

ture of public funds. Constructive housing legislation 
can have no objection to being judged by such a standard. 
So far as court decisions are concerned, we may safely 
expect them to be favorable to a measure supported by 
public opinion. More than this we have no right to ask. 

3. THE ECONOMIC OBJECTION 

A delegate at a recent conference of the National 
Housing Association (1916) stated that for his part 
he did not believe the time would ever come when Amer- 
ican taxpayers would be willing to build houses for 
able-bodied working people to live in, and the ensuing 
ripple of applause showed that he had expressed a rather 
widely-held thought. 

Now the whole appeal of this statement lies, of course, 
in the unexpressed implication that the taxpayers would 
be out of pocket by such a transaction and that they 
would be unwilling to add to their burden of taxation in 
order to provide houses for able-bodied working people. 

The present writer is of the opinion that a very good 
argument could be made in favor of the taxpayers add- 
ing to their burdens for such a purpose. The present 
writer believes that if there were no other way of secur- 
ing a wholesome home for every family, the taxpayers 
ought to assume such a burden, and that if they were 
really unable to carry both, housing should take prece- 
dence of schools. Health and morals are needs more 
primary and elemental than education. 

As a matter of fact, however, there is no such need, 
and consequently no excuse for any such policy in the 
United States. We are advocating the use of the com- 
munity's credit, not of its funds. We are aiming to 
give a service at cost, not below cost. A properly con- 
ducted constructive housing scheme is exactly self -sup- 



246 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

porting. There is neither profit nor loss of a financial 
sort to the community, though there is very great profit 
in the form of better health and better citizenship. 

It has already been pointed out that the Irish system 
of subsidy from the rates and from the imperial ex- 
chequer is altogether exceptional, and in the writer's 
opinion comes under the head of out-door poor relief 
rather than constructive housing legislation. But let us 
not quarrel over definitions. If any one wishes to main- 
tain that the Irish system is a form of constructive hous- 
ing legislation, then the writer grants at once that that 
particular form should not be copied in the United States. 
J As to the other " horrible example," the cost of slum 
clearance schemes so frequently urged, it is only by a 
confusion of thought that they have ever been charged 
to constructive housing. As was stated in Chapter V, 
slum clearance schemes are health measures, pure and 
simple, each to be justified or attacked on its own merits. 
We have had them in this country. When Mulberry 
Bend in New York was cleared of rookeries and made 
into a park, when Willow Tree Alley in Washington was 
cleared and made into a playground, or when the Mor- 
ton Street area was even more recently so treated in 
Boston, we had slum clearance schemes, and they were 
paid for as health measures by the taxpayers. 

The confusion of thought in regard to the English 
slum clearance schemes probably arises from two facts — 
(i) that the same acts of Parliament deal with them as 
with constructive housing, and (2) that the British law 
provides for the re-housing of the former population of 
the area cleared. Thus, though quite unjustly, as the 
reports of the London County Council show, the oppo- 
nents of municipal housing have tried to foist the whole 



Objections to Constructive Hocusing Legislation 247 

cost of slum clearance on the subsequent re-housing 
project. 

We have seen in our study of British housing that local 
authorities there have come very near indeed to estab- 
lishing a balance between debit and credit in their con- 
structive housing enterprises. We have seen that the 
German municipalities have achieved such a balance. 

In the writer's opinion this should be the guiding 
principle. The worker is to have his house at cost, 
whatever that may he, not at a given price, no matter 
whether or not there is a deficit. Every effort should 
be made to keep down expenses so as to offer a house 
of approved standard at a predetermined rent. But 
where a small deficit creeps in, in spite of calculation, the 
rent should be raised to meet it. 

As with municipal building, so with government loans. 
Commercial profit in money lending is to be eliminated. 
The community uses its credit to obtain cheap and 
plentiful money and gives the borrower the benefit of the 
cheapness and of the plenti fulness. It is he, however, 
and not the community, who pays the interest and repays 
the principal. This fact has to be emphasized, for the 
mention of a bond issue arouses in the taxpayer's mind 
the idea of a big bill, as for parks, bridges, or public build- 
ings, which he or his successors will have to pay. If the 
bond issue is for the purpose of housing loans, the bor- 
rower pays the interest, plus a contribution to the sinking 
fund, plus whatever is necessary to pay the overhead 
charges of the bond issue, and the taxpayer pays noth- 
ing. 

Under a system such as obtains in Ontario, no money 
changes hands as between the state and the housing com- 
pany. The state simply guarantees 85 per cent, of the 



248 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

association's bonds, thus making them as safe and there- 
fore as salable at a low rate of interest as government 
bonds. 

In Ontario the state pays the cost of the supervision 
necessary for its own protection, and to this extent the 
taxpayers contribute. But this is not an essential fea- 
ture of the program. These costs in many places are 
paid by the borrower. 

When the loans come from savings banks, insurance 
funds or trust funds of any sort, it is clear that no one 
is out of pocket. It is only that this particular form of 
investment is added to those already permitted to such 
institutions. 

4. THE SOCIAL OBJECTION 

The social objection is the obverse of the economic 
objection and falls to the ground with it. But as it is 
very widely used, we will consider it more seriously than 
it deserves. " We must not pauperize the workingman. 
We must not give him something for nothing. We must 
not destroy his initiative by doing something for him 
w'hich he ought to do for himself." 

W^e may safely agree with all this, but it does not 
apply. We are not pauperizing the workingman, be- 
cause W'C are not giving him something for nothing. We 
are giving it to him at cost. 

If receiving a service at cost is pauperizing, then the 
people of Cleveland are pauperized when they pay three 
cents instead of five on their municipal street car lines. 
And we are all pauperized when we use the parcel post 
in preference to express. The writer at one time paid 
$6 a month water rates to a privately owned water 
company in Berkeley, California, and at another time 
paid forty-seven cents a month for better water service 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 249 

publicly owned in the District of Columbia, but was con- 
scious of no corresponding fluctuations in self-respect. 

If this were a case of getting something for nothing, 
which emphatically it is not, is the effect of getting some- 
thing for nothing necessarily pauperizing? If so, what 
are we to say about schools and parks, free lectures and 
band concerts? Edward T. Devine, in one of his social 
studies, suggests that material aid, such as food or cloth- 
ing, pauperizes, while immaterial aid, such as education, 
does not. Without denying the suggestiveness of the dis- 
tinction, the writer believes such a line is difficult to draw. 
School buildings, school books and parks are as ma- 
terial as the child's home. The education received in the 
school is no more immaterial than the good health and 
good citizenship acquired in a good home. Probably the 
real distinction connects up with the last point in the 
charge. " We must not destroy his initiative by doing 
something for him which he ought to do himself." If 
we violate this injunction, the resulting bad effect may 
properly enough be described as pauperization. 

The average unskilled wage earner under normal con- 
ditions can by his own exertions buy food and clothing 
for his family, therefore to give them to him is pauperiz- 
ing. He can also pay rent, therefore to pay it for him is 
pauperizing. But can he control the type and standard 
of house on which he pays rent? How much can the un- 
skilled worker living in a city tenement do through his 
private initiative to secure for his family a real home? 
Can he save the money or command the credit to buy one 
for himself? Obviously not. We are not concerned 
with the man of exceptional ability who climbs into an- 
other social and economic stratum, who must in the na- 
ture of the case remain exceptional. Our concern is with 
the rank and file. 



250 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

There is a very real economic line between those who 
have the necessary capital or the necessar}^ credit to buy 
land and build homes for themselves and those who have 
not. The power to build for oneself is a whip held over 
the landlord which keeps standards up and prices down. 
This explains why the wealthy and those of moderate 
means get approximately their money's worth when they 
rent a house, while the poor and the near-poor obviously 
do not. They have to take whatever is offered to them, 
which is certain to be, in the long run, the minimum which 
the law allows.^ This is the economic group for whom 
constructive housing legislation is imperative. 

They have never, as a matter of fact, secured satis fac- 
tor}^ housing conditions for themselves in cities, some- 
times not in the countr}\ It is futile to expect them to 
do so in the future unless we mean through an economic 
or industrial revolution. 

It may be that the present order of things is not 
destined to survive long in any case, but it certainly will 
not if we do not insist that the great masses of working 
people be housed in a way that makes normal, whole- 
some home life possible — that conserves health and 
fosters contentment. 

To return to the schools. What is the underlying 
philosophy of our public school system ? It rests on two 
principles, which we have come to regard as self-evident ; 
(i) that a democracy must, in self-protection, assure the 
intelligence of its future voters through education, and 
(2) that, in a democracy, equality of opportunity must be 
assured to the individual through free public schools. 
This is not a charity, but a right. 

1 The writer well remembers the shock with which she once 
learned that her colored laundress was paying higher rent per 
room than she was. This was in Washington, D. C, 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 251 

Yet, important as education is, health and morahty are 
more essential, and there would be something grotesquely 
illogical in such a claim as we have cited which at the 
same time ignored the state's need of physical efficiency 
and morality in its citizens, or the individual's right to 
equality of opportunity to secure health and righteous- 
ness. As a matter of fact, the founders of the public 
school system are not guilty of this inconsistency. Vast 
stretches of unoccupied land available for any citizen 
who would live on it and cultivate it produced precisely 
that equality of opportunity. The Government through 
the Homestead Act ^ as truly provided free farms as free 
education. While the supply lasted, it outdid the most 
radical constructive housing law ever enacted. No gov- 
ernment has ever provided homes for the homeless on 
such a scale or with such an entire ignoring of an eco- 
nomic quid pro quo. 

Were the men and women who took up quarter sections 
pauperized? Was their initiative snuffed out? Will 
that be the effect of a system which allows an industrious 
young workingman to become a home owner, through a 
carefully guarded system of loans and insurance? Will 
not this opportunity, shining like a ray of light in the gen- 
eral darkness of his prospects, be rather a potent stimu- 
lator of initiative, thrift and ambition? Is it not actually 
working so in Australia and New Zealand ? 

5. THE PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTION 

We are dealing here with fundamental theories of gov- 
ernment. The individualist, the consistent upholder of 
the laissez-faire doctrines of Adam Smith and John 
Stuart Mill, objects as a matter of course to any increase 
in the functions of government. To him, as to the anar- 
1 See Chap. VI, p. 210. 



252 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

chist, all government is per se evil, so the less we have of 
it, the better off we are. Philosophic anarchism is simply 
individualism carried to its logical extreme. 

The whole trend of modern thought is away from this 
point of view, and housing legislation may well be con- 
tent to take its chances along with the great bulk of 
health, labor and other forms of social legislation so char- 
acteristic of the twentieth century. They all rest on the 
same theoretical basis. The chances are we shall go much 
farther in the direction of collective action and govern- 
ment regulation before the pendulum starts to return. 
Our complex, interdependent city life pushes us daily 
farther from the old paradise of individualism where 
every family lived a mile from its neighbors and there 
was little danger of treading on one another's toes. 
The events which have happened since our entry into the 
war have accelerated this movement to an extraordi- 
nary degree, and we may now be said to be speeding 
towards collectivism at the rate of about a decade per 
annum. 

These processes will encounter opposition. Old be- 
liefs die hard, and catch-words often remain a fetish 
after the theory they were meant to illustrate has been 
thoroughly discredited. There are people left who sin- 
cerely believe that a woman's liberty to work fifteen hours 
at a stretch in a laundry is more precious than her health, 
and they naturally feel the same way about a man's 
liberty to live in a cellar, sleep in a windowless room 
or squeeze his family into one hundred and fifty cubic feet 
of air space per person. 

Perhaps it is all a matter of temperament rather than 
philosophy. The conservative shrinks from change, the 
progressive pushes toward it, each by the very nature of 
his being. Argument has no effect on temperament. 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 253 

The most it can do is to change our classification of a con- 
crete act or poHcy. Logic addressed to temperament is 
sheer waste. The foregoing considerations are intended 
to bear on classification only — to prove that constructive 
housing legislation is part and parcel of any broad pro- 
gressive social policy. 

The vaguer a statement is, the harder it is to disprove. 
Those who for theoretical or temperamental reasons dis- 
like the idea of government loans or municipal housing al- 
most invariably wind up by calling them un-American. 
They do not define Americanism, but they appear to iden- 
tify it, subconsciously, at least, with individualism, which 
is, of course, begging the question. 

They say : " You can do that sort of thing in a 
strongly centralized country under an autocratic ruler, 
like Germany, but Americans wouldn't stand for it, it's 
rank paternalism." (It has already been pointed out that 
housing reform in Germany began with local efforts, and 
has developed in a peculiarly decentralized way, suffer- 
ing all along from lack of uniformity and lack of cen- 
tral control.) Or: "That may be all right in Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand, but it won't do here. It's 
sociaUsm, pure and simple." 

The same person does not commonly make the two 
objections at the same time. 

6. THE PESSIMISTIC OBJECTION 

The last objection I have called pessimistic, for lack 
of a better label. It is summed up as follows: Con- 
structive housing legislation may have worked well abroad 
and may be constitutionally possible at home, but we must 
never attempt it here because our governments, especially 
our state and city governments, are too corrupt and in- 
efficient to be trusted with so much additional power. 



254 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

Xow that, of course, is the argument of despair. If 
we accept its premises we are admitting the failure of 
democracy, or at all events of American democracy. 
We are admitting that we are unfit for self-government. 
In which case the logical conclusion would be to invite 
the Kaiser over to take charge of us — a point of view 
which in his more prosperous days he had been at con- 
siderable pains to foster. 

Historically and psychologically, it is not hard to un- 
derstand that a man who remembers the days of Boss 
Tweed and has spent the bulk of his life under Tammany 
rule in Xew York might thus " despair of the republic." 
Nor, unfortunately, are the corruption and the inefficiency 
restricted to New York. Philadelphia and San Fran- 
cisco, Illinois and Texas, to name only a few, might also 
furnish horrible examples. But can any observer of 
contemporary life deny the awakening of the American 
civic conscience that has taken place in the last twenty 
years, or the great improvement it has wrought in our 
public service, especially at our weakest point — muni- 
cipal administration? 

Lord Bryce, who stung us into consciousness of our 
short-comings thirty years ago by his entirely deserved 
strictures on our state and city governments, in the 
preface to the 19 lo edition of the " American Common- 
wealth," says : " All I have seen and heard during the 
last few years makes me more hopeful for the future 
of popular government. The forces w^orking for good 
seem stronger to-day than they have been for the last 
three generations." Later (Vol. I, p. 655), in bringing 
his criticism of our cities up to date, he continues : '' No 
one who studies the municipal history of the last decades 
will doubt that things are better than they were twenty- 
five years ago. The newer frames of government are an 



I 



Objections to Constructive Housing Legislation 255 

improvement upon the older. Rogues are less audacious, 
good citizens are more active. Party spirit is still per- 
mitted to dominate and pervert municipal politics, yet 
the mischief it does is more clearly discerned and the 
number of those who resist it daily increases." 

In the interval since 19 10 it can hardly be questioned 
that still further progress has been made in raising 
the standard of our public service. 

In short, while much remains to be done, and Ameri- 
cans have little cause for complacency in this direction, 
there is no reason for despair — no reason for predicating 
fundamental American inferiority either mental or moral. 

Most of us who have had the bringing up of a child 
know that the way to protect his digestion is not to hide 
the sugar bowl, but to teach him self-restraint. Even so, 
where local, state or national government falls short 
of our ideals, the way to bring about improvement is not 
by curtailing authority and hampering governmental ac- 
tion, but by making officials increasingly responsible to 
the electorate. Select the highest type of man and give 
him more power, that he may do good, not less, for fear 
of his doing evil. Then hold him strictly responsible for 
the success or failure of his administration. And this is 
coming more and more to be the position of forward- 
looking American thought. 

If a thing needs to be done and a host of British, Ger- 
man, Belgian, French, Italian, Austrian and Australasian 
officials have proved honest and efficient enough to do it 
successfully, no self-respecting American ought to say: 
" We cannot do it here." 

As a matter of fact, the present New York tenement 
house law offers quite as many opportunities for corrup- 
tion as would a municipal housing enterprise — many 
more than a government loan. And yet everybody 



256 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

knows, those who oppose constructive housing legisla- 
tion best of all, that the New York tenement house law 
has been honestly and efficiently administered and has 
accomplished a vast amount of good. 

From all of which it appears that there is no insuper- 
able obstacle to a policy of constructive housing legisla- 
tion in the United States if and when the people decide 
they want it. 



CHAPTER VIII 

OUTLINE OF A COMPREHENSIVE HOUSING 
POLICY FOR THE UNITED STATES 

I. WHICH OF THE FOUR TYPES OF CONSTRUCTIVE 
HOUSING LEGISLATION SHOULD WE HAVE? 

We have seen that there is no essential difference be- 
tween our housing needs and those of foreign countries, 
that constructive housing has proved beneficial to them, 
and that no insuperable obstacle exists to its being tried 
in the United States. If our reasoning is correct, con- 
structive housing legislation is coming, not simply for 
war emergency purposes, but as a permanent policy. We 
could not stop it if we would. But we may be able to 
guide its development. It has many varieties. Which 
should we encourage? What type or types stand out 
because of intrinsic superiority, or greater congeniality to 
our peculiar institutions, or greater appropriateness to 
our special circumstances? 

As to the four main types of government aid,^ we do 
not hesitate to assert that any well-thought-out policy 
for the United States would include all three positive 
types. It should quite possibly also include the nega- 
tive type — that of tax exemption. 

In degree of social and industrial development, in- 

1 1. Direct state or municipal housing. 2. Loans to non-commer- 
cial housing companies. 3. Loans to individual workingmen. 4. 
Tax exemptions for houses of approved standard and rental. See 
Chap. V. pp. 137-139- 

257 



258 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

eluding the development of congested slums and an un- 
derpaid proletariat, we stand midway between the coun- 
tries of the old world and the Australasian colonies. 
yy\M^ have still enough left of hope and opportunity for 
the ambitious workingman of more than average abil- 
ity, to make it incumbent on us to develop a plan of loans 
to the individual wage earner with home-ownership as 
the goal. This is in line with American traditions and 
what we like to think of as still the typically American 
state of things. 3^. Yet we must not shut our eyes to the 
^ truth that there are millions of wage earners without the 
opportunity or the initiative to profit by such an arrange- 
ment — too poor to lay by even the small sums neces- 
sary to acquire a home on the easiest conceivable terms, 
too ignorant to understand the ways and means, too 
much numbed by the whirl of the great machine in which 
they are tiny cogs to develop the driving power, pre- 
destined to be tenants all their lives. Yet these are the 
people who, most of all, need help, whose children, most 
of all, need the stimulus of good home conditions. For 
them, municipal houses, or houses built and rented by 
a limited-dividend public-welfare association, present the 
only solution. 

As between the two forms just cited, a careful exam- 
ination of European experience shows that housing re- 
form flourishes best when both forms are allowed to 
develop side by side. The very controversies that rage 
between their respective advocates redound (as in Eng- 
land) to the public good. Each side strives to make a 
better showing than the other in order to prove its case. 
Municipal housing has tended to standardize the work 
of the private associations, while their influence has 
tended to keep down cost and encourage flexibility. The 
advocates of private initiative gloomily predicted that 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 259 

it would be stifled by governmental competition. The ex- 
act reverse appears to be the case. No one familiar with 
the tremendous growth of private associations in Eng- 
land and Germany, where municipal activity has been 
greatest, can question the truth of this observation. 

We have already laid down the principle that the ex- 
isting conditions in the United States do not justify (if 
any conditions anywhere justify) the injection of any 
form of disguised poor-relief into constructive housing 
activities. There should be no subsidies to perpetuate 
low wages, no levy on the over-burdened taxpayer — 
no robbing Peter to pay Paul. Municipal housing 
schemes should be exactly and automatically self-sup- 
porting. The rent should vary with the state of the 
balance sheet. Housing loans whether to societies or to 
individuals should also be exactly self-supporting. The 
interest should be calculated to pay charges and provide 
a sinking fund for the repayment of principal. Whether 
the community for the sake of improved health and citi- 
zenship, might legitimately contribute the cost of ad- 
ministration of a loan, or negatively deprive itself of 
potential assets by tax exemptions, is open to argument. 
Much may be said on both sides. 

Assuming the general aims in view, the precise way 
of attaining them must be worked out eclectically and 
with much patience. It is our task to retain the good 
and reject the evil, but it is not so simple as choosing be- 
tween abstract good and bad. We are concerned with 
what is likely to prove good under our special local con- 
ditions, in view of our peculiar institutions, bodies of 
law, and habits of thought. No housing law exists 
which we could transplant as it stands. A tremendous 
amount of adjusting and adapting must be done. Yet 
the very difficulties of the problem are stimulating, once 



26o Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

we are convinced that a solution is possible and very 
much worth while. 



2. RESTRICTIVE HOUSING LEGISLATION 

(i) To be Developed Simultaneously 

It may be confidently asserted that any comprehen- 
sive plan looking to an even tolerably satisfactor)^ solu- 
tion of the housing problem in the United States must 
include the simidtaneous and correlated development of 
restrictive and constructive housing legislation in their 
most effective forms. Thus far we have failed in this 
country because we have had only restrictive laws. The 
two types are in no sense antagonistic, but are mutually 
complementary, and neither can be satisfactorily enforced 
without the other. 

Restrictive housing legislation alone will not do, be- 
cause no restrictive law can set satisfactorily high stand- 
ards, or having set them, dares enforce them, unless or 
farther than constructive housing legislation is simul- 
taneously supplying the demand for dwellings of the re- 
quired standard and rental. Other^vise those intended to 
be benefited would be deprived even of the apologies for 
houses they now possess. Increase of wages by itself 
will not meet the difHculty, as Henry Ford amply proved 
by his experience in Detroit. The landlord will merely 
raise rents to correspond. 

On the other hand, constructive housing legislation 
alone will not be sufficient. We must have minimum 
standards. We must prevent the creation of new slums 
and work for the gradual elimination of those we have. 
It would be impossible for government aid, direct or in- 
direct, to supply all the houses needed by wage earners. 
Unless prevented in the interest of public health, there 



Outline of a Comprehensive Homing Policy 261 

would always be a residuum of people — the unfortunate, 
the ignorant, the shiftless, the miserly, the physically, 
mentally or morally subnormal — who would be willing 
to live in cellars, or dark rooms, in filth and dilapidation, 
to save a few dollars a month of rent. And there would 
always be a residuum of landlords who would put on no 
repairs and make no improvements imtil forced to do so 
by the heavy hand of the law. 

(2) The Veiller Model Law 

As was shown in Chapter III, the standards of re- 
strictive housing legislation have been very carefully 
worked out by Mr. Veiller in his Model Law, which was 
published in 19 14 and based on the combined experience 
of the country to that date. 

The state is accepted as the best unit for legislation, 
and it is justly urged that no state should be contented 
with a tenement house law, but should protect all the 
homes of all the people by a housing law. The health 
of those Hving in one-family and two-family houses is as 
important as that of persons living in multiple dwellings, 
even though it is less widely endangered. 

National legislation along restrictive lines is impossi- 
ble, and local legislation should be resorted to only as a 
temporary expedient pending the adoption of a state 
law, or to impose higher standards than those set by the 
state law. 

3. CONSTRUCTIVE LEGISLATION, NATIONAL, STATE 
AND LOCAL 

( I ) National Legislation 

It is the writer's belief, based especially on the British 
experience, that housing and town planning should be 



262 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

bound as closely together as possible. This union will 
appear clearly in the state and local legislation and ad- 
ministration to be discussed later. Nationally, the sit- 
uation is different, for it would be as impossible under 
the constitution for a national body to exert jurisdiction 
in town planning as it would be in restrictive housing 
legislation. National town planning legislation is out 
of the question. On the other hand the National Hous- 
ing Commission might and should include proper town 
planning among the requisites for eligibility to a hous- 
ing loan. 

A. National Housing Commission 

The National Housing Act to be passed by Congress 
would provide for a National Housing Commission of, 
say, seven members, four ex ofificio and three appointed 
by the President. The Commission should be under the 
Department of Labor. The ex officio members should 
be the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, the Chief 
of the Children's Bureau, the head of the Public Health 
and Marine Hospital Service and, perhaps, the Comp- 
troller of the Currency. Of the appointed members, two 
should serve without pay, but should receive expenses 
when attending meetings of the Commission, which 
would take place at least once a month. The third ap- 
pointed member should be Chairman of the Commission, 
should devote his entire time to it and should receive a 
salary of $7,000 or thereabouts, as is customary in federal 
offices of similar importance. 

(a) The functions of the Housing Commission should 
bear a certain analogy to those of the Federal Board for 
Vocational Education (U. S. Statutes at Large, 64th 
Congress, Session H, Chap. 114, approved Feb. 23, 
191 7), in that both would be concerned with the allot- 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 263 

ment of funds to the several states and the imposition 
of standards through the power to grant or withhold 
those funds. ^ 

The Vocational Education Act also stipulates that 
federal money shall only be allotted to those states which 
spend the same amount, dollar for dollar, for the speci- 
fied object. The same stipulation should be made in the 
case of the Housing Commission. 

The vital distinction between the allotments under the 
Vocational Education Act and those under the proposed 
Housing Act would be that the former are gifts and the 
latter loans. Every cent given out by the Housing Com- 
mission is repaid, principal and interest. 

The reason for confining loans to states with housing 
commissions will be discussed under state legislation. 

Grants should be made to applicants investigated and 
approved by their own State Housing Commission. 
These applicants would be of two main classes — munic- 
ipalities, or other local authorities planning a direct hous- 
ing development, and limited-dividend housing companies. 
These might be civic or philanthropic or cooperative or 
industrial (i. e., formed by employers), but should never 
be commercial. It is possible, of course, that individual 
applications from workingmen should be received and 
handled in the same way. For many reasons, however, it 
will be better to link them up with the postal savings de- 
posits and handle them separately. 

(b) The money loaned by the National Housing Com- 
mission should come from a national housing fund 
and all interest paid and principal repaid should go 

^ It is clear that such a commission as is here described would 
combine some of the functions of the British Local Government 
Board with some of the functions of the Public Works Loan Com- 
missioners, if we seek a foreign analogy. 



264 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

back into the fund. It should be held by the Treasurer of 
the United States separate from other moneys. Be- 
fore the war, one hundred million dollars would probably 
have been the maximum that any responsible person 
would have proposed for such a fund. Judged by human 
needs and by the policies of other governments (it is pro- 
posed in Great Britain for the government to spend a 
billion dollars after the war in housing) and by the gen- 
eral enlargement of our horizon which the war has 
brought about, it would not be extravagant to fix five 
hundred million as the amount of the fund. It should 
be raised by the issue of government bonds, which in 
normal times ought to be floated at 3 per cent. How 
soon interest rates will return to normal after the war 
cannot now be predicted. The issue should be spread 
over a minimum period of five years, with a limit of a 
hundred million a year. That would take care of ur- 
gent needs, and future legislation could be trusted to pro- 
vide for subsequent bond issues, whether on the same or 
a smaller scale. 

This is not to be regarded as a " welfare " or philan- 
thropic measure which might wisely be postponed till a 
later period after war debts have been paid off. It is, 
on the contrary, a sine qua non for being able to pay 
them off, a part of the necessars^ reconstruction and 
readjustment which must follow the war if we are to 
have industrial contentment and prosperity and keep our 
place among the nations of the world. If we neglect it, 
through short-sighted economy or indifference, we shall 
pay the price many fold. 

In the interest of this same reconstruction, it would 
be well that the Housing Commission be permitted to 
make loans to municipalities for slum clearance schemes 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 265 

under the same conditions. It might be wise to stipulate, 
as in the British law, that any municipality receiving a 
loan for such a purpose shall engage to build new hous- 
ing accommodations for the number of persons displaced 
by the clearance scheme. 

The rate of interest at which loans are made should be 
just enough to cover the interest charged on the bonds 
and the expense of their issue. The time should not 
exceed forty years in view of our comparatively unsub- 
stantial style of construction. The Italian Government, 
it will be remembered, makes loans for fifty years, and 
the British Government up to eighty. 

The percentage of the amounts loaned to the total 
should be fixed by the Commission in each case on its 
merits, but probably should never exceed 40 per cent.^ 
When the equal amount to be contributed by the state 
is added, this would leave 20 per cent, to be raised lo- 
cally. That such a proportion is not excessively liberal 
will be indicated by the many foreign examples quoted 
where the percentage lent ran from eighty-five to one 
hundred. 

There might be some question as to the security. The 
Federal Government, as the most distant creditor (and 
consequently most in need of protection), might hold 
the first mortgage and the state the second, or (and, per- 
haps, preferably) the state could make itself responsible 
for the repayment to the Federal Government and would 
therefore hold a first mortgage for the whole amount. 

This is probably all that it is necessary or desirable to 
include in a federal housing law, except that the Com- 
mission should undoubtedly be a center of authoritative 
information on housing and town planning. 

1 A possible exception is suggested on page 271, 



266 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

B. Postal Savings Deposit Loans to Individual Work- 
ingmen 

Supplementary to this, we ought to have an amend- 
ment of the Postal Savings law (6ist Congress, Sess. 2, 
Chap. 386), similar to that proposed in the Buchanan 
bill already alluded to in Chap. VI (H. R. 8472, 63rd 
Congress), permitting the loan of some safe amount, per- 
haps 20 per cent., perhaps more, of the postal savings de- 
posits to individual workingmen desirous of building 
their own houses. The details might be worked out in 
various ways, but it is to be hoped that the New Zealand 
procedure will be followed as closely as possible, be- 
cause of its admirable simplicity. A loan should prob- 
ably never exceed $2,500 and the total value of house and 
land should not exceed $3,000. The recipient should 
be a manual or clerical worker, whose annual income is 
not in excess of $1,200. Some authorities believe that 
such a stipulation would be thrown out by the courts as 
class legislation in this country and that the limitation of 
the amount of the loan and value of the house, together 
with the proviso that the borrower may own no other 
real estate, would produce the same result. That it 
would answer the purpose, may be approximately true, 
but the income proviso is better if it can be secured. 

As postal savings deposits only receive interest at the 
rate of 2 per cent. (Sec. 7), it follows that loans could 
be made from these deposits at a very low rate of inter- 
est. The banks where they are deposited pay only 2% 
per cent, on them. (Sec. 9.) The individual borrower 
ought to pay 3 per cent, if prompt, 3% per cent, if 
dilatory. (Cf. New Zealand provisions.) 

The borrower might well make his application through 
his post-office as in New Zealand, but this application 
should be passed upon by the nearest local housing board. 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 267 

In states where such bodies had not yet been created, it 
would be necessary for a federal agent of the Postal Sav- 
ings Fund Trustees to make the inspection. The loan 
might then be handled by the nearest bank receiving 
postal savings deposits, but the writer believes it would 
be better to have it managed from Washington under the 
Board of Trustees of the Postal Savings Fund, who 
would have at their disposal for this purpose the 20 per 
cent, (or whatever percentage was decided upon) of the 
total deposits. 

The time of the loan should not in any case exceed 
thirty years, and insurance on the Belgian plan should 
be compulsory, except perhaps in the rare cases where 
the borrower had no wife or dependent children to whom 
the house ought to revert in case of his death. The ap- 
propriateness of having the savings of the people used 
for the benefit of the people in the way suggested, rather 
than for the benefit of the local banks where they are 
deposited as at present, is too obvious to need elaboration. 

C. HousingXoans by National Banks 

Another possible piece of federal legislation suggests 
itself, namely an amendment of the Federal Reserve Act 
which would permit national banks to make housing 
loans. At present some (not all) such banks are per- 
mitted to invest up to 25 per cent, of their capital and 
surplus or one-third of their time deposits in loans on 
real estate; but the property must be improved and un- 
incumbered, the loan must not exceed 50 per cent, of its 
value, and the time for farms may not exceed five years, 
or for any other form of real estate, one year. Of course 
such stipulations bar out housing loans. If banks were 
permitted to make housing loans for twenty-five years to 
municipalities or housing companies at current rates of 



268 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

interest, and to employ in such manner even 5 per cent, of 
their capital and surplus, it would release a large amount 
of money. But it would probably require a good deal 
of educational work among directors to bring them to see 
the wisdom of it. 

D. Amendment of the Farm Loan Act 

The last likely source of funds dependent on federal 
legislation would be provided, if the Farm Loan Act (ap- 
proved July 17, 19 16) were amended to permit housing 
loans on similar terms. The farm loans are for a maxi- 
mum period of forty years (Sec. 12, Sub-sec. 2), and at 
a maximum rate of interest of 6 per cent. (Sec. 12, Sub- 
sec. 3). The fourth sub-section of section twelve, defin- 
ing the purpose for which loans may be made, w^ould be 
the one primarily to be amended, but if the privilege were 
to be of much use, the fifth sub-section, which limits 
loans on land to 50 per cent, of its value and loans on im- 
provements to 20 per cent., would have to be made more 
liberal towards improvements. 

This extension of farm loan privileges has been a good 
deal discussed. In recent conventions of Building and 
Loan Associations the opinion has been expressed that 
such a development is inevitable and that they should 
prepare themselves for this form of competition. The 
writer is convinced that government loans and Building 
Loan Associations can be made to work together to the 
great advantage of the wage earning population, and 
that any resulting competition will be stimulating rather 
than destructive. 

Take this suggested amendment of the Farm Loan 
Act. Suppose it permitted a first mortgage loan of 50 
per cent, of the value of the house and land to be repaid 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 269 

in thirty years, repayment of principal not to begin till 
after the expiration of fifteen years. The borrower 
would be required to own his lot or to have 10 per cent, 
of the total amount on hand to start with. The remain- 
ing 40 per cent, he could get from the Building and Loan 
Association on the usual terms, except that the associa- 
tion would have to content itself with a second mortgage 
in exchange for the stability offered by a transaction un- 
der government supervision. During the first fifteen 
years then, the borrower would be paying off the second 
mortgage and paying interest on the first. While dur- 
ing the second fifteen years he would extinguish the 
first mortgage.^ 

(2) State Legislation 

Every state should have a restrictive housing law, a 
constructive housing law and a town planning law. 
These might be three separate statutes or might be in- 
cluded as Parts I, II and III of the same statute. 

A. Administration. State Housing and Town Plan- 
ning Commission 

In either case administration should be centered in a 
State Commission of Housing and Town Planning. 

The usefulness of such a standardizing force would be 
so great that the writer believes the very strong stimulus 
toward its creation should be used of refusing federal 

1 The reasons why the Building and Loan Associations as they 
now exist do not meet the needs of lower paid workingmen are 
(i) that they require their loans to be repaid within a period too 
short for the saving capacity of that group and (2) that their rate 
of interest is too high. The above plan would greatly widen their 
sphere of usefulness by removing the first difficulty, but the lowest 
paid group of all should have recourse to the loans at lower interest 
rate made possible by amending the Postal Savings Deposits law as 
suggested on page 266. See also Chap. VI. 



270 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

loans to states which have not created such commissions. 
The precedent has been estabUshed by the \'ocational 
Education Act already quoted, which in Sec. 5 requires 
the creation of a specified state board as a prerequisite 
to the receipt of federal grants, as well as a dollar-for- 
dollar expenditure by the benefited state. 

The Commission should have three experts, one a town 
planner, one a sanitarian, the other a housing specialist 
and by preference an architect. Their special provinces 
should be the three statutes or parts of statutes enum- 
erated. This is approximately the method employed by 
the British Local Government Board. With the excep- 
tion of the experts and the executive officer, the mem- 
bers of the Commission should be unpaid. Member- 
ship should be considered an honor, and the highest type 
of citizen should be chosen. There are plent\' of exam- 
ples to be found at home and abroad of valuable services 
by unpaid boards. 

The relation of the Commission to Local Housing and 
Town Planning Boards should be in general that of a 
State Board of Health to Local Boards. But that varies 
from almost complete centralization to the merest advis- 
ory relationship. The writer confesses to a belief in the 
superior efficiency of centralization. At all events the 
State Commission should have as much authority as the 
California Commission of Immigration and Housing, 
which is allowed to make inspections and investigations 
all over the state and to enforce restrictive housing laws 
where local authorities have failed to do so. The Massa- 
chusetts situation is certainly a source of weakness, for 
the town planning boards, although created by the Home- 
stead Commission, are quite independent of it, except so 
far as they voluntarily treat it with filial respect. Xo 
legal authority exists. 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 271 

B. Functions 

The functions of the State Commission in regard to 
the enforcement by local authorities of the restrictive 
housing law need no special explanation. It should, as 
above stated, have power to act when the local authority 
has failed to do its duty. Its relation to local town plan- 
ning should also be reasonably clear. It should have 
the power, moreover, new to the United States, of ac- 
cepting or rejecting town planning or development 
schemes worked out by local boards or groups of boards 
— such a power as is exercised by the Local Government 
Board in Great Britain or by the Department of Munic- 
ipal Affairs or other provincial authority in Canada. 

In regard to the constructive housing law, the Com- 
mission would concern itself with the investigation and 
approval or disapproval of constructive housing schemes 
by municipalities or associations and with their financing. 

C. Funds 

There should be a state housing fund corresponding 
to the national housing fund, raised through the issue 
of state bonds. These would bear a somewhat higher 
rate of interest than national bonds, which would vary 
in different states. 

As suggested before, for an approved scheme, the 
National Commission could loan 40 per cent., the State 
Commission an equal amount, and the municipality or 
association would be required to furnish 20 per cent. 
If it was especially desired to encourage municipal un- 
dertakings, the Federal Government could match its dol- 
lar against a combined state and local dollar. Thus a 
large city, with financial resources proportionally greater 
than those of the state, might furnish 35 per cent, of 
the required capital, receiving 15 per cent, from the 



2^2 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

state and 50 per cent, from the National Commission. 

In a state where it was especially desired to stimulate 
the work of housing companies, the Canadian plan of 
guaranteeing 85 per cent, of the bonds of an approved 
association is commended as simple and effective. 

In any state where state insurance exists in connection 
with workmen's compensation, or where it may develop 
in the future in connection with health, invalidity or old 
age insurance, a certain proportion of such funds should 
be invested in housing loans. 

A certain proportion of the deposits of savings banks 
should also be made available for this purpose. 

It must not be forgotten that some of the most im- 
portant functions of the State Commission will be edu- 
cational. It must act as a distributing center of informa- 
tion, a restrainer of irresponsible experim.ent, and a 
stimulator of laggard communities. It should be able 
in its turn to call on the National Commission for authori- 
tative information, but it is not subordinate to that com- 
mission, except in so far as the federal hold on the purse 
strings produces a strong inducement to conformity. 

The experience of Massachusetts suggests that some 
states at least will have to amend their constitutions be- 
fore they can pass constructive housing laws. 

It is not desirable as a permanent policy that the State 
Commission should itself carry on housing enterprises, 
but it might very well be permitted to conduct one or 
more demonstrations, as the Massachusetts Homestead 
Com,mission is now doing, to furnish an object lesson 
to overcome the timidity or inertia of cities and societies. 

(3) Local Legislation. Housing and Town Planning 
Boards 
The same statute which creates the State Commission 



I 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 273 

of Housing and Town Planning should also provide for 
the appointment of Local Housing and Town Planning 
Boards under its jurisdiction. 

These boards, like their Belgian prototypes, the Comites 
de patronage, should be unpaid, though in the larger 
cities they should doubtless be provided with a salaried 
secretary. They should cover the whole territory of 
the state, not simply cities and towns of ten thousand 
inhabitants and over, as in Massachusetts. Rural hous- 
ing and rural planning are of very great importance. 
It is easier to prevent the evils of congestion than to cure 
them. Probably the county should be the unit in rural 
districts, as township boards would be too numerous 
for efficiency. 

It should be made the duty of the Governor or of 
the State Commission of Housing and Town Planning 
to appoint these boards in any case where the local au- 
thority failed to act. The instance has already been cited 
of the Mayor of Fall River, who declined to appoint 
a planning board and said, " What are you going to do 
about it?" Under existing Massachusetts law, no one 
can do anything. 

The Housing and Town Planning Board should be 
composed of persons of local prominence in and out of 
public life — the health officer, the mayor, a well-known 
architect, an official of the Central Labor Union, at least 
one woman active in civic betterment, a leading business 
man, a public-spirited clergyman. The importance of 
its role can hardly be overestimated. The board is at 
once official and unofficial. It is thoroughly local, but it 
has behind it the authority of the State Commission. It 
must investigate local conditions and make known what it 
finds. It must educate the community to the dangers 
of bad housing and the possibilities of good housing. 



274 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

The relation of the local boards to the restrictive hous- 
ing law should be to aid its enforcement by the local au- 
thorities, and where these do not function properly, re- 
port the fact to the State Housing Commission. This 
local guardianship will obviate the necessity of the State 
Commission's maintaining a large force of inspectors. 

Under the town planning law, the boards should gather 
data and make plans, as is now the case in Massachusetts. 
But they should have the power while a plan is being 
prepared, to call a halt on activities in contravention of 
that plan, until it has been approved or disapproved. If 
the State Commission approves it, the plan becomes bind- 
ing until altered by the same authority. Among the 
planning powers of the board, should be that of drawing 
up slum clearance schemes. 

It is plain that the granting of final town planning au- 
thority to a state commission will involve a rather seri- 
ous departure from American home rule practice. The 
path of least resistance would be to submit the plan 
drawn up by the local board to the voters for their ap- 
proval or disapproval. Perhaps that will be the way 
chosen, in spite of the obvious fact that an electorate is 
ill-fitted to pass on such a highly technical matter. That 
would reduce the functions of the State Commission to 
the educational and advisory. But even so, with a yearly 
conference, such as is provided for in Massachusetts, and 
the yearly report from the local board, and above all with 
the State Commission's town planning expert ready to 
give advice or assistance to local boards when requested, 
its sphere of usefulness would be fairly large. 

Under the British and Canadian system extensive lo- 
cal hearings are held while the plan is being made, and 
further hearings before it is approved by the central 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 275 

authority. An exactly similar procedure was followed 
in New York in regard to the zoning ordinance. 

One great difficulty of the home rule system would be 
in the preparation of plans involving two or more local 
jurisdictions. The State Commission should surely be 
given authority in case of disagreements of this kind. 

Under the constructive housing law, the local board is 
responsible for the existence of a sufficient supply of 
workmen's houses of acceptable standard and cost. It 
must make and keep up to date a survey along these lines. 
Where a deficiency exists in quantity or quality, it must 
take steps to overcome it. It may encourage the forma- 
tion of non-commercial housing companies, where they 
do not already exist, and aid them in selecting good plans 
and in obtaining state and federal loans. It may do the 
same for employers or for cooperative housing com- 
panies composed of workingmen. It may recommend 
and secure the adoption of a policy of municipal hous- 
ing — whether in the form of tenements or suburban cot- 
tages. It may encourage individual borrowing and build- 
ing by workmen, and help in securing the necessary loans. 
It may and should keep on hand a collection of plans and 
specifications of good inexpensive houses, for the benefit 
of workmen and associations. 

The state constructive housing law should contain an 
enabling clause providing that cities may issue bonds 
to a specified limit for housing purposes if their projects 
obtain the sanction of the State Housing and Town Plan- 
ning Commission. 

(4) Needs of Different Economic Groups 

It should be noted that, in the foregoing outline of a 
housing policy, an effort has been made to meet, with- 



276 Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner 

out going beyond, the housing needs of the several eco- 
nomic groups. The lowest economic group will have 
rented houses or tenements provided by cities and housing 
companies. Individuals aspiring to home ownership, 
with an income not exceeding $1,200, are to have the 
benefit of low interest rates and long time payments made 
possible by the release of Postal Savings deposits. While 
there is, of course, no hard and fast lower limit to this 
group, it is safe to say that nearly all who take advantage 
of the opportunity will be those whose incomes are from 
$1,000 to $1,200. An overlapping group — say those 
with incomes from $800 to $1,500 — might attain group 
ownership through co-partnership methods, if they could 
be induced to try it. Those with incomes over $1,200, 
debarred from the privileges of the Postal Savings de- 
posits law, could have the same privileges as to time at 
the higher interest rate offered under the suggested 
amendment of the Farm Loan law. No income limit has 
been suggested for borrowers here, because the matter 
would automatically adjust itself. No special interest 
privilege is offered, only one of time, and presumably a 
person financially able to pay for his house in fifteen 
years would prefer doing so to spreading it out over 
thirty. It is quite possible, however, that some limit as 
to the amount of the loan and the value of the house 
should be included in the proposed amendment. As has 
already been stated, persons with incomes of from $1,500 
to $1,800 and over can get on very well under present 
Building and Loan Association methods without special 
legislation in their behalf. 

4. CONCLUSION 

We have now arrived at the end of our journey. In 
the course of it, we have endeavored to suggest that the 



Outline of a Comprehensive Housing Policy 277 

housing of its unskilled workers is America's next great 
problem — that our national future will be one of pro- 
gress or of decadence according to the way in which we 
handle it. Never again shall we go back to the laissez- 
faire attitude, " the-whatever-is-is-right " philosophy of 
the days before the war — nor should we wish to. Never 
again will the great mass of our working people be con- 
tent with just enough to eat to ward off starvation and 
four walls and a roof to keep out the rain. We have won 
this war in trench and shipyard, in wheat-field and muni- 
tion factory by the sweat and the blood of our working 
people. What the rest of us could have done without 
them would be a drop in the bucket. They will deserve 
and they will get a square deal — a much squarer deal than 
they have ever received before. Incidentally, if they are 
not given it, they will take it ; but most of us do not be- 
lieve it will come to that in the United States. 

If after the world is made safe for democracy, democ- 
racy is to be made safe for the world, if we are to hold 
our own in free competition with the other peoples of 
the earth, we must do so by improving our own brand of 
citizenship in health, in intelligence, in morals, in in- 
dividual efficiency, in patriotism. We must begin not 
merely in childhood, but in baby-hood and before the baby 
is bom. And no other single agency — not even the 
baby clinic or the public school — exerts such an influence 
for good or evil as the home that forms the baby's al- 
most exclusive environment. We are not going to be 
content to have a third of our young manhood physically 
unfit, by the standard of the recruiting office. We are 
not going to be content with an infant mortality rate twice 
as high as that of Australia and New Zealand. We are 
going back to being what we once really were — a land 
of promise and a land of homes. 



I 



APPENDIX A 

HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS IN THE 
UNITED STATES 

The progress of a reform movement depends on two fac- 
tors — the virtue of the cause and the efficiency of the or- 
ganization behind it. The second factor often outweighs 
the first. 

Better housing is one of the primary needs in the United 
States to-day, but the mechanism so far developed for meet- 
ing the need is relatively feeble. 

The ideal organization would be a national association 
with adequate financial resources under which should be 
forty-eight state associations, each having its group of local 
branches. Labor organizations, federations of women's 
clubs, medical and other prof essionar groups, are built on 
such a skeleton. The anti-tuberculosis movement makes an 
approach to it. Housing lags far behind. Housing reform 
organizations are comparatively recent everywhere. The 
French national association, Societe frangaise des habita- 
tions a hon marc he, was founded in 1889. The German na- 
tional organization, Deutscher Verein fiir Wohnungsreform, 
dates only from 1904. The British National Housing Re- 
form Council, now called the National Housing and Town 
Planning Council, is also a late-comer, 

I. NATIONAL HOUSING ASSOCIATION 

Our own National Housing Association was organized in 
1910. Its headquarters are in New York (105 East 22nd 
Street). Its president from the start has been Robert W. de 
Forest, and its secretary, director and inspiring genius Law- 
rence Veiller. The board of directors represent various sec- 
tions of the country. The N. H. A. has always been handi^ 

279 



28o Appendix A 

capped by lack of funds. In spite of this, thanks chiefly to 
the energy and ability of Mr. Veiller, it has accomplished a 
great deal. Its activities fall under four heads : ( i ) Annual 
Housing Conference, (2) Publications, (3) Correspond- 
ence, (4) Field Work. 

(i) Annual Conference. 

The three-day conference, which brings together twc or 
three hundred out-of-town delegates, many of them persons 
of distinction, has a big educational effect on the city where 
it is held. New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, 
Providence, Chicago and Boston have had these conventions 
in the order named. 

All sessions are open to the public. Local people attend 
in large numbers if the local committee's work has been 
well done. The local press reports the addresses. And 
later comes the bound volume of proceedings to crystallize 
the impression and preserve what was of permanent value. 
Meanwhile the delegates have carried home to their several 
communities the inspiration they have gathered from the 
conference. 

(2) Publications 

The printing of the proceedings of the annual conference 
(under the title of Housing Problems in America) brings 
us into the second class of activities. The N. H. A. also 
issues a pamphlet quarterly. Housing Betterment, con- 
taining news notes of housing activities throughout the 
United States and Canada, and to a certain extent through- 
out the world. 

Besides these regular publications, the N. H. A. issues 
monographs from time to time by various authors on hous- 
ing subjects. Over fifty have appeared so far. 

(3) Correspondence 

Thousands of individual letters are sent out yearly from 
the New York offices. In many cases this correspondence 



Appendix A 281 

has given advice, encouragement and directive force to very 
important local movements. In its most fleeting contacts, it 
serves as a distributing center of housing information. 



(4) Field Work 

Field work has been hampered by the lack of funds to 
provide a field secretary during a considerable portion of the 
association's life. Mr. Veiller has to limit his own trips 
to important centers where a housing campaign is already 
under way. The service his great experience enables him 
to render in these trips is, however, of the very first order. 

The National Housing Association needs three things: 
(i) More money to enable it to enlarge and perfect its 
present activities. (2) A broader point of view. It has 
been in the past too exclusively interested in securing re- 
strictive legislation. When the need of new houses could 
no longer be ignored, its individualistic bias kept it blind 
to the larger possibilities of community action. (3) The 
third need is an organic relationship to state and local hous- 
ing societies. This is not even a subject of discussion at 
the present time, but it ought to be. 

2. STATE HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS 

Leaving out certain paper attempts at organization, which 
never emerged from that stage, there are three state hous- 
ing associations, those of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and 
Indiana. The Indiana Housing Association dates from 
191 1, the other two from 191 3. All three have done 
propaganda work through public meetings and literature and 
have aided in securing and preserving restrictive legisla- 
tion. All three have led a struggling existence owing to 
almost total lack of funds, and none of them has a paid 
secretary or an office of its own.^ 

^ Since this paragraph was written a state housing association 
has been organized in Io\yu an4 is \yorking for a state-wid? hous- 
ing l^W, 



282 Appendix A 



3. LOCAL HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS 

Early in 1917 the files of the National Housing Associa- 
tion (the only source of information on the subject) con- 
tained the names of one hundred and sixty-one local organ- 
izations concerned with housing in the United States. Only 
a handful are independent housing associations, the rest be- 
ing housing committees. The organizations to which these 
committees belong fall under three main groups, mentioned 
in the order of their importance: (i) Chambers of Com- 
merce, (2) Associated Charities, and (3) Women's Clubs. 
Thirty-one were very recent Chamber of Commerce Com- 
mittees organized to cope with house famines in war indus- 
try centers. The following year saw many more of these. 

A study of the material relating to the older 130 showed 
that 18 were certainly and 46 probably dead, 40 more 
were doubtful, and only 26 were certainly alive. Even 
these were alive in varying degrees, and perhaps only one, 
the Philadelphia Housing Association, has come within sight 
of realizing what a local housing society ought to be and do. 

The work of local organizations falls under five heads. 

( 1 ) Investigation — the housing survey. 

(2) Educational propaganda — lectures, exhibits, publi- 
cations, etc. 

(3) Framing and passage of legislation — always re- 
strictive, so far. 

(4) Law enforcement — usually through reporting cases 
of bad housing to health and building departments and fol- 
lowing them up till remedied. 

(5) Supplying houses — organizing housing companies. 
The actual building of the houses is the work of an in- 
corporated stock company, which must not be confused with 
the propagandist housing association or committee, which, 
perhaps, brought it into being. 

The recent Chamber of Commerce committees have been 
almost wholly concerned with the fifth activity. The ear- 
lier Chamber of Commerce committees, as well as those of 



Appendix A 283 

the social service and women's organizations, generally con- 
fined themselves, with varying emphasis, to one or more of 
the first four. Normally, the several activities followed each 
other in the order given. 

Tenement House Committee, Charity Organization Society, 
New York 

This is the oldest existing housing agency in the United 
States, and the one with the greatest achievements to its 
credit. It has already been told (Chapter III, p. 78) how it 
was organized in 1898 on the suggestion of Mr. Veiller, and 
how, under his leadership and that of Mr. de Forest, it 
secured the passage of the New York Tenement House Act 
of 1 90 1, and the installation of the Tenement House De- 
partment in the city government, how it watched over the 
administration of the law and secured the regeneration of 
the department when it fell into unworthy hands, how it 
still stands guard and visits Albany yearly to prevent the 
weakening of the law. The creation of the National Hous- 
ing Association is due to its initiative, and for years Mr. 
Veiller divided his time between the two. Their offices 
are still adjoining. 

Tenement Hoiise Committee, Brooklyn Bureau of Charities 

This is a smaller and later edition of the New York C. O. 
S. committee and follows a similar policy in the borough of 
Brooklyn. 

Philadelphia Housing Association 

(Originally called the Philadelphia Housing Commission.) 
This is the only instance we have of an independent local 
housing organization which has shown its ability to live 
through a decade. It was founded at a meeting called on 
Sept. 8, 1909, by the Octavia Hill Association, which felt 
that its proper functions as a building, managing and rent- 
ing organization were suffering from the investigating and 
legislative work it was constantly called upon to divert its 



284 Appendix A 

energies to. The representatives of forty organizations took 
part in this meeting. (See 13th Annual Report Octavia 
Hill Association, Jan. 19 10.) The objects of the new so- 
ciety were defined as follows: Investigation of housing 
conditions, enforcement of law, enactment of additional 
legislation, and education of the public in housing matters. 
This last has been particularly well done through lectures, 
exhibits and a remarkably effective output of literature in 
leaflet form. 

In the field of legislation, the organization has had an 
eventful career. The framing and passage of the 1913 
housing law for first class cities (See Chapter III, p. 83) 
was its work, as was the long fight with Councils to have the 
law put into effect, the veto by the Governor of the machine- 
made substitute act, and the passage of the compromise law 
now in force. It is also responsible for the specialized 
bureau in the Health Department, which administers the 
law. 

The Philadelphia Housing Association was fortunate in 
having Bernard J. Newman for its executive officer through 
its formative years. He has recently been succeeded by 
John Ihlder, formerly field secretary of the National Hous- 
ing Association. Under Mr. Ihlder's guidance it has taken 
an active part in grappling with the house famine produced 
by the sudden development of Hog Island and other war 
plants. 

San Francisco Housing Association 

If the Philadelphia Housing Association is our best ex- 
ample of a local organization working with a paid executive 
and fairly adequate funds ($9,000 to $10,000 a y^ar), the 
San Francisco Housing Association is our best example of 
accomplishment through volunteer effort only, with a bud- 
get of a few hundred dollars to cover postage, stationery and 
•a little printing. It was organized in April, 1910, and 
played an important part in securing the state-wide Tene- 
rnent House Acts of 191 1 and 1913, Senator Lester G. Bur- 



Appendix A 285 

nettj who was their sponsor in the legislature, being a mem- 
ber of the executive committee of the Housing Associa- 
tion. The secretary, AHce S. Griffith, was carrying 
on meanwhile a really admirable law-enforcement cam- 
paign against heavy odds. Since the establishment of the 
State Commission of Housing and Immigration, the Associa- 
tion has become quiescent. It published two annual re- 
ports during its period of activity. 

The San Francisco Housing Association teaches two 
things: (i) that where proper financial support is not 
forthcoming, a volunteer organization may yet accomplish 
worth-while work, and (2) that no organization depending 
entirely on volunteer work will endure long as an active 
force. 

The San Francisco Housing Association, though it does 
not exclude individual membership, is really a joint com- 
mittee of delegates appointed by a group of organizations 
interested in housing. The Philadelphia Housing Associa- 
tion began similarly, but developed a fairly large individual 
membership in addition to something like eighty cooperating 
agencies. 

Cincinnati and Chicago 

The Cincinnati Better Housing League has a paid execu- 
tive and may be said to be modeled on the Philadelphia 
lines, while the Chicago Housing Council is more like the 
San Francisco Association. Its membership is limited to 
women's organizations. Both date from 1916, and it is still 
rather early to make statements in regard to their useful- 
ness. 

Housing Committee, Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
Association 

This has been one of the live committees attached to other 
organizations. It dates from 191 2, when Otto W. Davis 
was brought from Columbus, Ohio, to be its secretary. 

It made investigations, issued pamphlets, compiled com- 



286 Appendix A 

parative legislation charts, got the National Housing Con- 
ference to come to Minneapolis, secured town planning and 
zoning action, and finally in 1917 got the best restrictive 
housing law through the legislature that has so far been en- 
acted anywhere, the model law with improvements. 

Committee on Housing, Cleveland Chamber of Commerce 

This is an old organization, as such things go, dating from 
1902. It has had a paid secretary and done substantial 
work. During its early years it made investigations and 
published the results and made unsuccessful attempts to 
secure legislation. In 1914 it drew up the tenement house 
code, known as the Sunlight Code, and secured its adoption 
in 191 5 by the City Council. (See Chapter III, pp. 89, 90.) 
It also secured the establishment of a Bureau of Sanitation 
in the Health Department, and its own secretary, Mildred 
Chadsey, was made the Bureau's first head. More recently, 
the committee has been interesting itself in a project for 
financing building of workmen's homes. (See Chapter IV, 
p. 130.) 

Housing Committee, Federated Charities, Baltimore 

This committee dates from 1906 and has had alternate 
periods of activity and quiescence. It has investigated, is- 
sued reports, helped secure sewers, and agitated for a 
housing code. 

Housing Committee, St. Louis Civic League 

Starting work in 1907, this committee investigated and 
pubhshed (see Chapter II, pp. 54, 55), and after six years 
of effort secured a tenement house code (1913). 

Housing Department, Women's Municipal League, Boston 

From 1910 to 1917 this organization worked patiently at 
law enforcement. Its inspectors investigated cases of bad 
housing, reported them to the health or building depart- 
ment and followed up with reinspections till action was se- 
cured. In this way it accumulated much information on 



Appendix A 287 

housing conditions which from time to time it gave to the 
public. It made one incursion into the legislative field in 
1 914, securing an amendment to the building law concern- 
ing the occupancy of basement and cellar dwellings. In 
the autumn of 19 17, it launched a campaign for a housing 
law on the Veiller model and a housing department 
in the city government to administer it. A commission 
appointed by the mayor has recently drawn up a housing 
code, which is now before the legislature. 

Detroit, Columbus (Ohio), Louisville, and some other 
cities have had committees which were called into being to 
secure housing legislation, but disbanded after the object 
was achieved. 

Housing Committee, Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce 

This is a typical example of recent activities induced by 
house famines hampering war industries. Bridgeport, 
which had developed these conditions long before our own 
entrance into the war, was one of the first to act. The 
Chamber of Commerce Committee engaged John Nolen to 
make a housing survey and report to them. His report was 
published in August, 1916. (" More Houses for Bridge- 
port.") They then carried out his chief recommendation by 
launching the Bridgeport Housing Company with a capital 
stock of $1,000,000, to build workmen's houses. For other 
examples see Chapter IV. 

4. WHAT IS WRONG WIT|H THE HOUSING MOVEMENT? 

Housing reform in the United States has produced three 
magnetic personalities, Jacob Riis, who first made us care 
how the other half lived, Albion Fellows Bacon, who 
won a housing law for her state by sheer, disinterested per- 
sistence, and Lawrence Veiller, the high priest of restrictive 
housing legislation. 

And yet the housing movement remains anemic, the great 
bulk of people are indifferent. Why? Is it not because a 
negative appeal is never a strong one? Enthusiasm must 



288 Appendix A 

have something positive to feed on. Only a rare soul here 
and there can thrill about the dimensions of a lot-line court 
or the vi^idth of tread on a fire escape. And yet these dry 
details, translated into terms of human experience — sun- 
light in children's lives, safety from a fire tragedy — may be 
vitally important. 

Those who are engaged in the anti-tuberculosis campaign 
know that the hospital which segregates advanced and hope- 
less cases does more good than the sanatorium which tries 
to cure incipient cases. But it is always the sanatorium, not 
the hospital, which appeals to the imagination of the general 
public. Without the sanatorium, the anti-tuberculosis 
movement could never have reached its present propor- 
tions. 

May not the same be true of the housing movement? Is 
it not possible that the great awakening will come only 
when the popular imagination is stimulated by successful 
community action of a positive sort — homestead loans, gar- 
den suburbs, municipal cottages ? Is it not possible that re- 
strictive legislation itself will be carried in the wake of 
these things as it could never be carried by its own mo- 
mentum ? 



APPENDIX B 

OUTLINE OF A STATE LEGISLATIVE 
HOUSING PROGRAM 

It is suggested that the state program be embodied in a 
comprehensive Housing and Town Planning Act in four 
parts : 

Part I Administration. 

Part II Restrictive Housing Provisions. ^ 

Part III Constructive Housing Provisions. 

Part IV Town Planning Provisions. 

Part I — Administration 

This part would provide for a State Housing and Town 
Planning Commission of seven or nine members, appointed 
by the Governor and removable by him. Unpaid except for 
the executive officer and three experts along the lines indi- 
cated by Parts II, III and IV, respectively. 

All mayors (or governing commissions) of cities and 
towns to appoint a local Housing and Town Planning 
Board, consisting of the Mayor, Health Officer and three 
citizens, to serve without pay. (See Massachusetts Law 
concerning Planning Boards, Acts 1913, Chap. 494, and Ca- 
nadian Draft Act.) In cases of failure of local authorities 
to act, the State Commission to appoint. 

The local board to report to and be subordinate to the 
State Commission. 

Part II to be administered by local health officers and 
building inspectors, or whatever the existing local system 
may be. But in case of non-enforcement of law by them, 
the State Commission to have power to act (Cf. powers Cali- 

2Sg 



290 Appendix B 

fornia State Commission of Immigration and Housing in 
relation to the State Tenement House Act, amendment to 
Tenement House Act, 1915). 

Local boards to report to State Commission on en- 
forcement or non-enforcement of housing law by local au^ 
thorities. (Cf. provisions of Belgian law and that of 
numerous countries modeled on it.) 

Part ni to be administered by the Commission and local 
boards, as will appear later. 

Part IV to be administered by the local boards, sub- 
ject to the approval of the Commission as per Canadian 
Draft Act. 

Part II — Restrictive Housing Provisions 

This part would be based on the Veiller Model Law, 
making such changes as were necesary to adjust it to local 
conditions. 

Part III — Constructive Housing Provisions 

The duties of the Commission under Part III would be 
educational, financial and supervisory. It should control 
a state housing fund derived from a sale of bonds, spread 
over a number of years (Cf. New Zealand, Prussian, Im- 
perial German and other housing funds). The law should 
permit savings banks to invest a proportion (say 10 per 
cent.) of their deposits in housing loans, the State Com- 
mission to be the intermediary. (Cf. Belgian, French, 
Italian and other laws.) 

A state having a state insurance system should permit the 
use of its funds for housing loans under similar conditions. 
(Cf. German law concerning Old Age and Invalidity In- 
surance Institutes.) 

Loans from the state housing fund should be to cities, to 
non-commercial housing companies and to individual wage- 
earners (Cf. British Housing of the Working Classes Acts 
and Small Dwellings Acquisition Act). Conditions of loans 
to associations and to individual workingmen should be 



Appendix B 291 

similar to those embodied in the District of Columbia Draft 
Act. 

AH appHcations for loans should be made to, investigated 
by, and forwarded with recommendations by the nearest 
local board. The Commission should have a small staff 
for investigation and inspection to check up the work and 
recommendations of local boards as needed. All payments 
of interest and installments of principal of loans should be 
made through the local boards. 

There should be an enabling clause permitting cities to 
conduct municipal housing schemes and bond themselves 
for the purpose, but requiring that every such scheme should 
have the approval of the State Commission. 

The law should permit the Commission to use a portion 
of the housing fund (limited perhaps to $200,000, cf. legis- 
lation sought by Massachusetts Homestead Commission) to 
make a demonstration for educational purposes, of a garden 
suburb for workingmen. 

It should be the duty of local boards to arouse local 
interest in housing and town planning, by lectures, exhibits, 
distribution of literature and information. These activi- 
ties should be aided and supervised by the Commission, 
which might well have a traveling exhibit, an itinerant lec- 
turer and supplies of literature for the local boards. The 
Commission should also prepare, and see that all local 
boards are supplied with, a number of good plans of low- 
priced dwellings with particulars as to cost (Cf. New 
Zealand law). 

It should be the duty of the local boards to advise 
and encourage non-commercial housing companies and indi- 
vidual workingmen aspiring to home-ownership. (Cf. Bel- 
gian, Italian and other laws.) 

Part IV — Town Planning Provisions 

This part would be based on the Canadian Conservation 
Commission's Draft Act for provincial legislatures, with the 
adjustments necessary to fit it to the different administra- 



292 Appendix B 

tive and legislative habits of the United States. These ad- 
justments would be less extensive than might appear at first 
sight, though greater than in the case of the model law in 
Part II. 



APPENDIX C 

DRAFT OF A CONSTRUCTIVE HOUSING ACT 
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ^ 

An Act to create a housing commission for the District 
of Columbia, to provide capital for the improved housing of 
wage earners, to increase the supply of low-cost sanitary- 
dwellings, to set standards of structure and maintenance, to 
encourage thrift through home-ownership, to disseminate 
information relating to the housing of wage earners, and 
for other purposes. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

That there is established a Housing Commission of the 
District of Columbia, consisting of the Engineer Commis- 
sioner of the District of Columbia, who shall be Chairman, 
the Health Officer of the District of Columbia, the Chief 
Building Inspector of the District of Columbia, and four 
other members to be appointed by the President of the 
United States by and with the consent of the Senate. Of 
the members appointed by the President at least one shall 
be a woman and at least one shall be a representative of 
organized labor. Of the members appointed by the Presi- 
dent, three shall serve without pay; the fourth, who must 
possess special technical qualifications, shall be the active 
executive officer of the Commission, shall devote his entire 
time to its business, and shall receive an annual salary of 
$3,500 payable monthly. 

The members appointed by the President shall serve for 

iThe text of Representative Borland's H. R. 6841, 64th Congress, 
has been freely borrowed from in the preparation of this draft, as 
well as the writer's earlier draft introduced by Representative Bor- 
land and Senator Pomerene during the 63rd Congress. 

293 



294 Appendix C 

three years unless sooner removed by him for cause, except 
that of the members first appointed, one shall be designated 
by him to serve for one year and one for two years. 

HOUSING FUND 

Sec. 2. That for the purposes of this Act a fund is 
hereby created in the Treasury of the United States to be 
known as the Housing Fund of the District of Columbia, 
which shall consist of the proceeds of the bonds hereinafter 
authorized, together with such other taxes, excises, or 
revenues of the District of Columbia as Congress may ap- 
propriate or set apart for that purpose, such gifts or be- 
quests as may be made to said Housing Fund, and all such 
sums collected by the Commission upon any loan, sale or 
rental made under the terms of this Act. This fund shall 
be used solely for the purposes of this Act. 

ISSUE OF BONDS 

Sec. 3. That the Treasurer of the United States is 
hereby authorized and directed, on the request of the Com- 
mission, approved by the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia, to issue bonds of the District of Columbia, pay- 
able not less than fifteen nor more than forty years after 
date, bearing interest not exceeding four percentum per 
annum, to an amount not exceeding $700,000 in any one 
fiscal year, or $10,000,000 in the aggregate. Such bonds 
shall be sold at not less than par, and the proceeds shall 
become part of the Housing Fund created by this Act. 
Such bonds shall be registered with the Register of the 
Treasury of the United States, who shall certify thereon that 
they are issued in accordance with the terms of this Act 
and within the limits herein prescribed. 

MUNICIPAL DWELLINGS FOR WAGE EARNERS 

Sec. 4. That the Commission may construct, or cause 
to be constructed, modern sanitary dwellings for wage 
earners in the District of Columbia. In exercising this 



Appendix C 295 

power, it may employ the funds to the credit of the Hous- 
ing Fund and may use for such purpose, with the approval 
of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, any 
land belonging to the District of Columbia, or which the 
Commission may acquire by purchase, gift, condemnation, or 
otherwise. The dwellings so built shall be rented or sold 
to wage earners. If rented, the rent shall be fixed at the 
lowest amount that will carry the interest, taxes, insurance, 
depreciation, and repairs of the property, so that the hous- 
ing fund shall be reimbursed for its actual investment and 
expense. Tenants shall be selected from applicants who 
are manual, clerical or other wage earners, resident in the 
District of Columbia, and of good moral character, whose 
family income is less than $800 per annum. Preference 
shall be given to those families whose income is less than 
$600 per annum and to those with four or more children 
under fourteen years of age. 

If the dwellings are sold, the sale price shall be calculated 
to cover the actual cost of the property to the Commission. 
Interest on the unpaid balance shall be at the rate of four 
and a half per centum per annum, but this shall be reduced 
to four per centum provided payment is made not later than 
eight days after due date, and no arrears remain outstand- 
ing. Payments shall be made monthly in equal installments 
and shall cover interest, taxes, insurance, repairs, and in- 
stallment of the sale price. The Commission shall de- 
termine the period of payment in each case, but in no case 
shall it exceed thirty years. Facilities shall be granted, on 
application, to extinguish the debt, in whole or in part, at 
an earlier date than that agreed upon. Title shall not pass 
to the purchaser until the payments are completed. A 
purchaser of a dwelling under this section must be a man- 
ual, clerical or other wage earner, resident in the District 
of Columbia, whose family income does not exceed $1,000 
per annum and who is not the owner of any real estate. He 
must satisfy the Commission of his good moral character, 
reputation for thrift, and financial reliability. 



296 Appendix C 

Even' purchaser of a dwelling under this section shall 
insure his life for the benefit of the Housing Fund for a 
diminishing sum, the amount of which at any time shall 
equal the amount of the unpaid purchase price at that time. 
In case the purchaser dies before completing the purchase, 
a clear deed to the dwelling and lot shall be delivered, with- 
out further payment, to his widow, minor children, or such 
other beneficiary as he shall have designated in his contract 
of purchase. 

The Commission shall make uniform rules and regula- 
tions for the rent or sale of such dwellings, which shall 
provide for repayment, enforcement of securit}', inspection, 
sanitation and compliance with conditions for the protec- 
tion and preservation of the property'. 

LOANS TO XOX-COMMERCIAL HOUSING COMPANIES 

Sec. 5. That the Commission shall upon application of 
any duly incorporated non-commercial housing company 
cause an investigation to be made into the purposes and 
management of such com.pany, and if satisfied that its pur- 
pose is the construction of sanitan,- dwellings for wage 
earners, that its management is efficient, economical and 
trustworthy, and that its plan for the rental or sale of its 
dwellings is sound and practicable, may loan to such com- 
pany, for the purpose of constructing such dwellings, such 
sum from the Housing Fund as seems safe and proper. 

A non-commercial housing company, within the meaning 
of this Act, shall be deemed to be an incorporated associa- 
tion exclusively engaged in constructing and renting or sell- 
ing dwellings for wage earners, the articles of incorpora- 
tion of which (i) prohibit the payment of any interest, 
dividend, premium or profit of any sort to its stockholders 
in excess of five percentum per annum on the paid-up value 
of their shares, and (2) provide that in the event of dissolu- 
tion, any surplus remaining after the payment of just obliga- 
tions, among w^hich shall be reckoned the face value of 
paid-up stock, shall be made over to and become part of the 



Appendix C 297 

Housing Fund of the District of Columbia, and (3) pro- 
vide that its officers and directors shall receive no salaries 
or bonuses, except that the secretary and treasurer may re- 
ceive compensation for time actually devoted by them to 
the work of the association at a rate in harmony with its 
non-commercial character. 

For the purposes of this Act, non-commercial housing 
companies shall be of two classes: (A) those whose 
stockholders, or some of them, are the persons intending to 
live in the dwellings to be built, and ( B ) those whose stock- 
holders are not prospective tenants or purchasers. Asso- 
ciations of Class A receiving loans under the terms of this 
Act shall rent or sell dwellings erected by them only to their 
own stockholders, and only to those stockholders whose 
family income does not exceed $1,200 per annum. Associa- 
tions of Class B receiving loans under the terms of this Act 
are subject to all the rules and limitations for tenants and 
purchasers enumerated in Sec. 4 of this Act. All loans made 
by the Commission to non-commercial housing companies 
shall be secured by a first mortgage on the land and im- 
provements for which the loan is obtained. The loan shall 
in no case exceed eighty per centum of the market value of 
such security. The period for which the loan is made shall 
in no case exceed forty years. The loan shall bear interest 
at four percentum per annum. 

The Commission shall have power to make rules and reg- 
ulations governing such loans and their repayment, which 
may provide for 

First. Representation of the Commission on the board 
of directors of an association to which a loan is granted, 
and inspection of its books, records and accounts. 

Second. Appraisement of the security offered, and ap- 
proval of the plans, specifications, and contracts for the 
construction of the dwellings. 

Third. Advances to the association or directly to the con- 
tractors, workmen or materialmen as the construction pro- 
gresses on dwellings offered as security. 



298 Appendix C 

Fourth. Rentals to be charged by the association, and 
terms and conditions under which the dwellings may be 
sold to wage earners. 

Fifth. Insurance, sanitation, repairs; the right of in- 
spection of premises by the Commission ; and the obliga- 
tions of the tenants and purchasers for the protection and 
preservation of the property. 

Sixth. The maintenance of a sinking fund by such asso- 
ciation for the repayment of such loan, or the periodical 
reduction thereof, or the assignment to the Housing Fund 
of payments accruing under contracts of sale. 

Seventh. The foreclosure of mortgages or other lesser 
penalties in case of non-fulfillment of the conditions of the 
loan or non-compliance with the rules and regulations of the 
Commission. 

LOANS TO INDIVIDUAL WAGE EARNERS 

Sec. 6. That the Commission shall be empowered, under 
such rules and regulations as it may prescribe, to make loans 
from the Housing Fund to individual wage earners for the 
construction or acquisition of their own homes. 

An applicant for a loan under this section must be a 
manual, clerical, or other wage earner, resident in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, whose family income does not exceed 
$1,200 per annum. He must satisfy the Commission of his 
^ood moral character, reputation for thrift, and financial re- 
liability. An applicant shall own the land upon which he 
proposes to build and shall not be the owner of any other 
real estate. The sum loaned shall in no case exceed $2,000 
and the land on which the borrower proposes to build shall 
not exceed $700 in value, nor shall the combined value of 
house and land exceed $3,000. 

Such loans shall be secured by a first mortgage and shall 
bear interest at the rate of four and a half percentum per 
annum, but this shall be reduced to four percentum provided 
payment is made not later than eight days after due date 



Appendix C 299 

and no arrears remain outstanding. The period for which 
such loans are made shall in no case exceed thirty years. 
Repayment of the loan, together with interest, taxes, insur- 
ance, renewals and repairs, shall be made in monthly in- 
stallments. But facilities shall be granted, on application, 
to extinguish the debt, in whole or in part, at an earlier 
date than that agreed upon. The borrower shall insure his 
life for the benefit of the Housing Fund, subject to all the 
conditions enumerated in Sec. 4 of this Act. The Com- 
mission may in its discretion establish its own fund to pro- 
vide the insurance required in Sections 4, 5 and 6. 

DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION 

Sec. 7. That the Commission shall use every means at its 
disposal to disseminate information relating to good hous- 
ing. It shall give information and encouragement to non- 
commercial housing companies and to individual wage 
earners desirous of acquiring homes. It shall keep on hand 
a variety of approved plans of sanitary inexpensive dwell- 
ings with information as to cost of construction. 

ORGANIZATION EXPENSES 

Sec. 8. That the sum of $25,000, or so much thereof 
as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated and set apart 
out of any money in the Treasury, not otherwise appro- 
priated, to be expended under the Housing Commission, for 
the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this 
Act, including the rent, if necessary, and equipment of of- 
fices, the payment of salaries of the executive officer of the 
Commission and necessary office assistants, the purchase of 
supplies, and the expenses connected with the first bond 
issue. 

LIMITATION OF COURT DECISIONS 

Sec. 9. That if any clause, sentence, paragraph or part 
of this Act shall for any reason be adjudged by any court 



300 Appendix C 

of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such judgment shall 
not affect, impair or invalidate the remainder of this Act, 
but shall be confined in its operation to the clause, sentence, 
paragraph or part thereof directly involved in the contro- 
versy in which such judgment shall have been rendered. 



REFERENCES TO SIMILAR PROVISIONS 
IN EXISTING STATUTES 

Sec. I 

Housing Commission. Powers and duties analogous to 
those of the Belgian and French comites de patronage, 
the Italian and Spanish local committees, Chilean 
departmental councils, etc. 

Sec. 2 ^- - 

Housing Funds. Norwegian Housing Loan Fund, 1894 ; 
Prussian Housing Fund, 1895; Austrian, 1910; Im- 
perial German, 1901 ; Swedish, 1905 ; Irish, 1906, 
191 1. 

Sec. 3 

Issue of bonds. Norwegian and Prussian funds provided 
by sale of bonds. Also the loans made under New 
Zealand Advances to Workers Act, and Australian 
Acts. 

Limit of annual issue. New Zealand £750,0(30. 

Treasurer of the U. S. See Chap. 337 Revised Statutes 
U. S. 1874, Duty of Sinking Fund Commissioners of 
District of Columbia to issue bonds, and Chap. 180, 
1878, abolishing Sinking Fund Commissioners and 
transferring their duties and powers to the Treas- 
urer of the U. S. 

Sec. 4 

Municipal dwellings provided for in British, German, Aus- 
trian, Hungarian, Danish, Swedish, Argentine, 
Cuban (built by provincial governments), Italian, 
301 



302 Appendix C 

Spanish, Australian, New Zealand, French and Bel- 
gian laws. 

Very little developed in France and Belgium, and of minor 
importance in Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zea- 
land. 

Rent or sell. Municipal dwellings are usually rented. It 
has been the policy of the city of Ulm, and some oth- 
ers, to sell them. This is also provided for in New 
Zealand (Workers' Dwellings Act), Xew South 
Wales and Western Australia. 

Rental to cover interest, repairs, depreciation, etc. Speci- 
fied in Prussian and most German statutes. Except 
in Ireland, this is nearly always the aim in prac- 
tice, even when not made part of the law. 

Selection of Tenatits. Family income basis of eligibility 
in Italy (1,500 Hre), New Zealand (£175). In 
France small income (amount not specified) and large 
family (four or more children under sixteen). 

Interest reducible hy prompt payment. New Zealand 5 
per cent, reducible to 4^ per cent. 

Period of Payment varies from 20 to 363^ year maximum 
in different countries. 

Insurance. Belgian law, widely copied. The big insur- 
ance companies kept the insurance feature from being 
made compulsory. But such preferential terms are 
given to insured persons that it is practically com- 
pulsory. It is optional in most countries which have 
copied, e. g., New Zealand and France. 

Sec. 3 

Loans to Non-Commercial Housing Companies made in 
Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Hol- 
land, Denmark, Luxemburg, Austria, Spain, Chile. 
Bonds of such associations guaranteed in Ontario. 
Limited Dividend Requirement. Customary. Limit 
varies. 4 per cent, in Prussia and generally in Ger- 



Appendix C 303 

many and the continent. 5 per cent, in Great Britain. 
6 per cent, in Canada. 

Surplus in Case of Dissolution. Customary in Germany. 

Percentage of value of property loaned. Varies from 50 
per cent, to 100 per cent. England's 66% per cent, 
to associations is considered too low (100 per cent, 
loaned to local authorities). Bavaria loans 80 per 
cent, to associations, Hesse 90 per cent, (has to go 
through commune). Austria, 90 per cent. Imperial 
German Housing Fund 90 per cent. Ontario guar- 
antees 85 per cent. 

Period of loan 40 years in England, 47 in Bavaria, 50 in 
Italy. The range of maxima for associations is 30 
to 50 years. 

Rate of interest. Ranges from 2 per cent, to 4}^ per 
cent. 3 to 4 per cent, most usual. Nearly all Eng- 
lish loans to associations are at 3^ per cent. Ger- 
man at 3 per cent. Belgian, which started at 2^ 
per cent., were raised to 33^ per cent. French gov- 
ernment loans remain (or did before the war) at 2 
per cent. 

Representation on Board of Directors. East Prussia, 
Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein and the Hanse Towns 
so require for loans from State Insurance Institute. 

Advancement of money as work progresses. British 
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, 1909. 

Supervision of Rentals, etc. French Acts, 1896, 1906, 
1912. Regulation is strict and systematic. 

Supervision as to repairs, insurance, etc. Customary un- 
der a variety of wording. In Germany loan can be 
recalled at any time if conditions are not complied 
with. 

Sinking fund or annual installment of principal. Cus- 
tomary. 



304 Appendix C 

Sec. 6 

Loans to Individual Wage Earners. Made in Great Brit- 
ain (Small Dwellings Acquisition Act, 1899), Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, and Norway, and through the 
intermediary of loan associations in Belgium, France 
and Sweden. They play a minor role in Germany. 

Income limit of borrower. New Zealand £200, Queens- 
land i200, South Australia i3cx>, Western Australia 
£400. 

Must own the land. New Zealand, Advances to Workers 
Act. 

Limit of loan. In Belgium a workingman may borrow 
5,000 francs for a lot and dwelling, the combined 
value of which does not exceed 5,500 fr. or, the land 
alone 1,500. In England the maximum loaned is 
£300 and the maximum value of house and land for 
which a loan may be made is £400. Four-fifths of 
the value is the maximum proportion which may be 
borrowed. In Norway the maximum loan is 1,500 
crowns ($402) for a house and lot the maximum 
value of which is 3,000 crowns, the maximum value 
of the land being 2,000 crowns. In New Zealand the 
maximum loan is ^450, or value of dwelling to be 
built, if less. Lot must be already owned by bor- 
rower. 

Australian maxima are higher, running to i 1,000 in Vic- 
toria. In Sweden three-fourths value of house may 
be loaned. Maximum value of house is 4,000 crowns. 

Rate of interest. New Zealand 5 per cent, reducible to 
4^. per cent. Great Britain, usual rate 3>^ per 
cent. Norway 4 per cent. Belgium 3^ to 4 per 
cent. 

Period of loan. New Zealand maximum 36^ years, 
Norway 28 years, Great Britain 30 years, Belgium 25 
years. 

Underwrite insurance. Belgian law. Is done by State 
Savings Bank, whiQh makes the loans. 



Appendix C 305 

Sec. 7 

Dissemination of Information. A duty of the Belgian 
and French comites de patronage, the Italian and 
Spanish local committees, and Chilean departmental 
councils as well as County Housing Committees un- 
der British Housing and Town Planning Act of 
1909. 

Plans and Costs. At post-offices in New Zealand. Ad- 
vances to Workers Act, 1906, 1913. 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, Lord, 163 
Ackerman, 162 

Adams, Thomas, 205-208, 224 
Adler, Felix, 38 
Adlington Street Area, 159 
Advances to Workers Act (New 
Zealand), 199-201, 202, 301- 

305 

A. I. C. P., see New York Asso- 
ciation for Improving the 
Condition of the Poor 

Akron, Ohio, 119 

Albany, 80, 83 

Albany Chamber of Commerce, 
129 

Albany Home Building Com- 
pany, 129 

Alfred Corning Clark Estate, 99, 

ICO 

Allen, Captain Charles J., 84, 

145 
Amendment of the Farm Loan 

Act, 268, 269, 276 
American Building and Loan 

Associations, 232 
American Civic Association, 204 
" American Commonwealth, 

The," 254 
American Federation of Labor, 

228 
American Institute of Archi- 
tects, 5 ; Journal of, 148, 160, 

162, 176 
Antwerp, 164, 166 
Appendix A, 279-288 
Appendix B, 289-292 
Appendix C, 293-300 
Application for loans made to 

307 



Postmasters (New Zealand), 

200 
Architectural Record, 124 
Argentina, 197, 301 
Arkle, Dr., 160 
Associated Charities, 57 
Astral Buildings of Brooklyn, 100 
Atterbury, Grosvenor, 120 
Austria, 191, 192, 239, 302, 303 
Austrian Housing Laws, 1910 

and 191 1, 191, 301 
Australasia, 90, 139, 239 
Australia, 197, 198, 202, 203, 251, 

253, 277, 302, 304 
Avenue A Estate, 99 

Bacon, Albion Fellows, 85, 287 

Baden, 174, 183 

Bakersfield, 223 

Balkan States, 195 

Ballinger and Perrot, 122 

Baltimore, 8, 9, 52, 55, 135, 231 

Bassett, Edward M., 231 

Bavarian Diet, 173, 303 

Baxter Street (N. Y. City), 33 

"Beauty for Ashes," 85 

Beemer, Miles W., 84 

Beernaert, Mr., (Minister of 
Finance, Belgium), 164 

Beginning of Constructive Hous- 
ing Legislation in the United 
States, 209 

Belgium, i, 137, 138, 139, 164, 
169, 184, 239, 302, 303, 304, 305 

Beloit, Wisconsin, 124 

Bergy, " Principles of Hygiene," 

134 
Berkeley, California, 89, 232, 248 



3o8 



Index 



Berlin, 134, 171, 174, 175, 178 

Bertillon, J., 134 

Bethlehem Steel Company, 4 

Billerica Garden Suburb, Inc., 
The, 105, 215 

Billerica, Massachusetts, 105, 106 

Birmingham, 117, 147, 148, 158, 
160, 233 

Bismark Program, 170 

Board of Condemnation of In- 
sanitary Buildings (D. C), 47, 
49 

Board of Health, N. Y. City, 39, 
40 

Board of Trade, British, 134 

Bologna, 189, 191 

Bolsheviki, 23 

Borland-Pomerene Housing 

Loan Bill (District of Colum- 
bia), 227, 228 

Borland, William P., 227, 293 

Boston, 7, 8, 23, 56, 51, 82, 86, 93, 
106, 135, 229, 231, 280 

Boston and Maine R. R., 106 

Boston Commission to Investi- 
gate Tenement House Condi- 
tions, 50 

Boston Cooperative Building 
Company, 95, 96, 113, 136 

Boston, Housing Committee of 
1915 Movement, 50 

Boston, Mayor of, 50 

Bound Brook, New Jersey, 106 

Bournville Village Trust, 93, 
105, 117, 118, 147, 158, 160 

Bowditch, Dr. H. P., 95 

Brazil, 197 

Breslau (Germany), 134 

Bridgeport Chamber of Com- 
merce, II, 130, 287 

Bridgeport Housing Company, 
130, 287 

Bristol, Pennsylvania, 236 

British Colonies, 60, 139 

British Embassy, 49 



British Housing, 140 

Bronx, The, 42 

Brooklyn, 24, 32, 2>7, 42, 44, 68, 
76, 77, 78, 79, 91, 96 

Brown, Udetta D., 57 

Brumbaugh, Governor, 83 

Brussels, 164, 166 

Bryce, Lord, 145, 254 

Buchanan Postal Savings De- 
posits Housing Loan Bill, 
229, 266 

Budapest, 192, 193 

Buenos Aires, 197 

Buffalo, 81 

Building and Loan Associations 
in the United States, 232, 23.;, 
268, 269, 276 

Building Costs, 8-17 

Bulletin du Ministere du tra- 
vail, 183, 197 

Burbank, Luther, 27 

Bureau of Buildings, Philadel- 
phia, 82 

Bureau of Industrial Housing, 
Department of Labor, 235 

Burnett, Lester G., 284, 285 

Burnham, Daniel C, 230 

Butler, Commissioner, 79, 80 



Cadbury, George, 93, 117, 118 

Caja de Credito Hipotecario, 
196, 197 

California, 222-225, 230 

California Commission of Im- 
migration and Housing, 7, 
223, 224, 270, 290 

California, Tenement House 
Law, 81, 86 

Camden, New Jersey, 236 

Canada, 139, 184, 197, 198, 204, 
207, 303 

Canadian Federal Government, 
207 



Index 



309 



Census of the United States, 17 
Census of England and Wales, 

133 
Census of Ireland, 134 
Census of Scotland, 133 
Central Labor Union (D. C), 

228, 273 
Chadsey, Mildred, 286 
Chamber of Commerce Enter- 
prises, 129, 130, 131, 282 
Charities, 59, 282 
Charity Organization Society, 

80 
Charity Organization Society of 

Baltimore, 135 
Charlesbank Homes of Boston, 

93 
Cherry Street, N. Y. City, 36 
Chester, Pennsylvania, 122 
Chicago, 7, 54, 70, 280 
Chicago Housing Council, 285 
Chicago School of Civics and 

Philanthropy, 7, 54 
" Child Wages in the Cotton 
Mill: Our Modern Feudal- 
ism," 127 
Chile, 196, 30E, 30s 
Chilean Housing Law of 1906, 

196 
Cincinnati, 13, 57, 104, 131, 280 
Cincinnati Better Housing 

League, 285 
Cincinnati Model Homes Com- 
pany, 104 
City and Suburban Homes 
Company, 13, 14, 98, 99, 100, 
113. 136 
City Legislation, 89 
City Planning Exhibit, 217 
" City Planning Progress," 230 
Civic Club of Philadelphia, 11 1 
Civil War, 35, 46 
Class Legislation, 241-243 
Cleveland, 10, 20, 74, 75, 89, 130, 
248 



Cleveland Chamber of Com- 
merce, 130 

Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, 
125 

Cleveland Homes Company, 130 

College Settlement, 39, 41 

Colorado Fuel and Iron Com- 
pany, 125 

Columbus, O., 57, 89, 287 

Comey, Arthur C, 106 

Comites de Patronage, 166, 167, 
168, 206, 272,, 301 

Commission of Conservation, 
204, 291 

Commission of Immigration 
and Housing of California, 
52 

Committee on Housing, Cleve- 
land Chamber of Commerce, 
286 

Committee of Fifty (Washing- 
ton), 227 

Connecticut, 81, 84 

Congress, 47, 227, 228 

Conseil superieur des habita- 
tions a bon marche, 186 

Conseil Superieur d'Hygiene 
Publique, 167, 169 

Conservation of Life, 206 

Constitutional Objection, The, 
240, 241-245 

Constructive Housing Legisla- 
tion, 18, 20, 25, 26, 60, 261- 
277, 290 

Coryndon, 105 

" Cost of Living in French 
Towns," 134 

Council of Hygiene and Public 
Health of the Citizens' Asso- 
ciation of New York, 30, 35, 

37 
Council of National Defense, 

2 
Court of Appeals, 39, 79 
Court of Common Pleas, 39 



3IO 



Index 



Courts, minimum width of, 67 
Cross Act (England), 141, 143 
Cuba, 185, 197, 301 
Culpin, Ewart G., 148, 156 
Cumberland Mills, Maine, 115 
Cutting, R. Fulton, 98 

Davis, Otto W., 57, 285 

Defense of the Realm Act, 145 

de Forest, Robert W., 21, 42, 
78, 279, 283 

Delaware & Lackawanna Rail- 
road Coal Companies, 123 

Denmark, 194, 301, 302 

Department of Municipal Af- 
fairs, Canada, 271 

Des Moines, 8 

Detroit, 287 

Detroit Health Department, 88 

Developments Which Will Fit 
In With A Constructive 
Housing Program, 229 

Devine, Edward T., 249 

Dexter, Seymour, 233 

Dinwiddie, Emily W., 113 

Direct State or Municipal 
Housing, 257 

Dissemination of Information, 
299 

District of Columbia, 227, 228, 
248, 293-300 

Dominguez Land Corporation, 
108 

Draft of a Constructive Hous- 
ing Act for the District of 
Columbia, 293-300 

Draper Company, Hopedale, 
Mass., 121 

Dresden, 134, 176 

Drexel, Joseph W., 38 

Dublin, 134, 163 

Dubois, Jean, 170 

Duluth, 89, 124 

Dupont Circle, 49 

Diisseldorf, 175, 177, 178, 182 



Dutch Housing Law of 1901, 
61 

Ealing, 105 

Ealing Tenants, Ltd., 147 

Early Examples, 115 

Earswick, 105, 147 

East End Dwellings Company 
of London, 158 

East River Model Tenement, 100 

East 73rd St. Estate, 99 

Eclipse Park, 124 

Economic Objection, The, 245- 
248 

Eidlitz, Otto M., 2, 235 

Elmira Chamber of Commerce, 
129 

Elmira Home Building Com- 
pany, 129 

Ely, Richard T., 178 

Emergency Fleet Corporation, 
5, 235, 236, 237 

England, 94, I37, 138, 149, 150, 
151, 152, 157, 158, 169, 175, 
230, 239, 303, 304 

English Slum Clearance 

Schemes 246 

Essen, Germany, 93, 118 

Essington, Pennsylvania, 236 

Europe, 60, 90, 136 

" European Cities at Work," 
176 

European Countries, 139 

" Example of Germany," 173 

Existing Dwellings, Require- 
ments for, 70 

Experience of Foreign Coun- 
tries, The, 133 



Fairbanks Company, 115 
Fairbanks Morse Company, 124 
Fair Rents Court, 202 
Fall River, 51, 127, 218 
Fallings Park, 105 



Index 



311 



"Family Budgets of Typical 

Cotton Mill Workers," 127 
Federal Board for Vocational 

Education, 262 
Federal Constitution, Limits of, 

240 
Federal Farm Loan Act, 241, 

268 
Federal Government, 61 
Federal Housing Loan Act, 241 
Federal Reserve Act, 267 
Felton, Katherine, 223 
Field Work, 281 
Fire Protection, 69 
Flint (Michigan), 130 
Flint Chamber of Commerce, 

130 
Flint Civic Building Company, 

130 
Florence, 191 
Forbes, Gerritt, 31 
Ford, George B., 230, 231 
Ford, Henry, 260 
Foreign Examples, 116 
Four Types of Constructive 

Housing Legislation, 257-261 
"Four Washington Alleys," 49 
Fourteenth Amendment, 242 
France, 137, 138, 184, 185, 189, 

1230, 239, 302, 303, 304, 305 
Freiburg, 177 
French Department of Labor, 

185, 186 
Fresno, 8, 223, 224 
Freund, Professor, 242, 244 
Functions of State Commis- 
sion, 271 

Galveston-Dallas News, 58 

Gand (Belgium), 166 

Garden City, Cities, 156; Asso- 
ciation, 147, 148; of To-mor- 
row, 147; Ltd., 147 

Gardiner, T. W., 233 

General Savings Bank and Pen- 
sion Fund, 164 



Geneva, Canton of, 195 

German Housing Companies, 
170, 171 

Germantown, 112 

Germany, i, 23, 134, 137, 138, 
139, 170, 175, 177, 181, 183, 
184, 230, 239, 301, 302, 303, 
304 

Gettemy, Charles F., 212 

Gilder, Richard Watson, 39-40 

Ginn, Edward, 93 

Glasgow, 133, 134 

Gompers, Samuel, 2 

Goodyear Heights, 119 

Goodyear Heights Realty Co., 
119, 120 

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Com- 
pany, 119, 120 

Gotham Court (N. Y. City), 36, 
136 

Gould, E. R. L., 95, 96, 98, 115 

Gourley, Robert Fleming, 229 

Government Aid and Its 
Forms, 136 

Grand Rapids, 8, 57, 89 

Great Britain, i, 5, 139, 140, 
144, 146, 148, 150, 184, 188, 
264, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 

Greater New York, 42, 100, loi 

Greei^oint Model Tenement, 
100 

Gretna, 5 

Griffith, Alice S., 285 

Griscom, Dr. John H., 31 

Guinness Trust, The, 92, 157 

Gwinn, 125 

Hampstead, 105 

Hampstead Garden Suburb, 147 

Hanger, G. W. W., 115, 126 

Haussman Reconstruction of 
Paris, 229 

Hauto and Nanticoke, 123 

Havana, 197 

Hayle's Charity Estate Trus- 
tees, 141 



312 



Index 



Hazard Family, 115 

Headley, Madge, 57 

Health Department,. 41-42, 48 

Heights of Building Commis- 
sion, 231 

Hellerau Garden City (near 
Dresden), 176 

Hesse, Grand Duchy of, 173, 
303 

Hesse Housing Act of 1902, 173 

Hessian State Bank, 173, 183 

Hill, Octavia, no, in 

History and Content of Legis- 
lation, 140, 164, 170 

Hog Island, 236 

Holland, 193, 302 

Homes Buildings, 96 

Homestead Act, 251 

Homewood, Brooklyn, 99 

Hopedale, Massachusetts, 121 

Hornbv Street Area, 159 

Horsfill, T. C, 173 

" Houses of Providence, The," 

57 
Housing Act of 1912 (France), 

187 

Housing and Town Planning 
Act of 1909 (British), 61, 143 

Housing Associations in the 
United States, 279 

Housing Betterment, 280 

" Housing by Employers," 124 

Housing by the Common- 
wealth, 218-222 

Housing Commission for the 
District of Columbia, 293-299 

Housing Committee, Bridgeport 
Chamber of Commerce, 287 

Housing Committee, Federated 
Charities, Baltimore, 286 

Housing Committee, Minneap- 
olis Civic and Commerce As- 
sociations, 285 

Housing Committee, St. Louis 
Civic League, 286 



Housing Conditions, 7, 8, 29-59, 

133-136, 238 
" Housing Conditions in St. 

Louis," 54, 135 
Housing Department, Women's 

Municipal League, Boston, 

286, 287 
Housing Fund (D. C), 294- 

299 
" Housing Handbook," W. 

Thompson, 148 
Housing Loans by National 

Banks, 267, 268 
Housing of the Working 

Classes Acts (British), 61, J 

142-149, 151, 290, 303 ^ 

" Housing of the Working Peo- 
ple in the United States by 

Employers," 126 
" Housing of the Working 

People, The," 95 
Housing Policy, A, 148 
Housing Problem, Identity of, 

133 
Housing Problems in America, 

280 
" Housing Reform," by Veiller, 

76 
"Housing Up to Date," W. 

Thompson, loi, 148, 152, 154, 

155, 157, 160, 161 
Howard, Ebenezer, 147 
Howe, Frederic C, 176 
Hungary, 192, 193, 301 



Ihlder, John, 57, 284 

Illinois, 82, 254 

Imperial Austrian Government, 

192 
Imperial German Government, 

192 
Imperial Reichstag, 172 
Indiana, 230 



Index 



313 



Indiana Housing Association, 

281 
Indiana Housing Law, 20, 81, 

85 

Indian Hill, 120 

Indian Hill Co., 120 

Industrial Housing by Employ- 
ers, 114 

International Housing Con- 
gress, Ninth, Vienna, 1910, 
169 

International Housing Con- 
gress, Tenth, The Hague, 
1913, 189 

Iowa, 82 

Ireland, 162, 163, 301, 302 

Iselin, Adrian, Jr., 98 

Ishpeming, 125 

Italy, 138, 184, 189-191, 239, 
301, 302, 303, 305 

Jaeger, Dr. Eugen, " Die Wohn- 

ungsfrage," 134 
John Burns Act, 147 
Joseph Rowntree Village Trust 

(Earswick Model Village), 

91 



Kaiser, The, 254 
Karlsruhe, 176 
Kemp, Janet E., 52, 135 
Kenosha (Wisconsin), 130 
Kenosha Homes Company, 130 
Kenosha, Manufacturers' Asso- 
ciation of, 130 
Kentucky, Tenement House 

Law, 81, 87 
Kispest (Hungary), 193 
Kistler, Penn., 13, 122 
Knox, Secretary of State, 214 
Kober, Dr. George M., loi 
Krupp, Alfred, 118 
Krupp, Friedrich Alfred, 118 
Krupps, at Essen, 117 



Laboring Classes Lodging 

Houses Act, 140 
La Monte, George, 106 
Land Enquiry Committee, 151 
Las Hahitaciones Obreras en 

Chile y en el Estranjero, 196 
Latin-America, 140, 196 
Lawrence (Massachusetts), 217 
Leclaire, 118, 119 
Lehigh Coal and Navigation 

Company, 123 
I'Enfant, Major, 46 
" Les habitations ouvrieres en 

Belgique, progres, 1904- 

1909," 170 
Letchworth, 51, 105, 147, 190, 205 
Lever, Sir William, 14, 109, 117 
Lex Adickes, 177 
Lido, 191. 

Liege (Belgium), 164, 166 
Light and Ventilation, 66 
Limitation of Court Decisions, 

299, 300 
Limited Dividend Housing 

Companies, 93 
Limoges, 188 
Liverpool, 22,, 117, 142, 147, 152, 

155, 158, 160, 161 
Loans to Individual Working- 
men, 138, 257, 298, 299 
Loans to Non-Commercial 

Housing Companies, 138, 257, 

296 
Local Government Board, 141, 

142, 144, 145, 146, 149, 151, 

154, 159, 205, 263, 270, 271 
Local Housing Associations, 

282 
Local Legislation, Housing and 

Town Planning Boards, 272- 

27s, 289 
London, 22,, 92, no, in, 133, 

135, 136, i^, 154, 15s, 156 
London Charity Organization 

Society, 1 10 



314 



Index 



London County Council, 141, 
152, 155, 156, 157, 246 

Loria Foundation (Milan), igo 

Los Angeles, 8, 108, 223, 224, 
231 

Louisville, 70, 81, 87, 287 

Lovejoy, Owen R., 10 

Lowell (Massachusetts), 51, 220 

" Low-Priced Housing for 
Wage Earners," 104 

Luxemburg, 195, 302 



McAneny, President, 231 

McClellan, Mayor, 79 

McKelway, A. J., 127 

]\Iagnusson, Leifur, 124 

Mahillon, M. Leon, 167 

Manchester (England), 158 

Manhattan, 42, 44, 45 

Mann and MacNeille, 119, 122 

Manning, Warren H,, 119 

Marcus Hook, 122 

Margarethe Krupp Fund (Mar- 
garethenhohe), 93, 117, 118, 
176 

Marlebone, no 

Marseilles, 23, 188 

IMassachusetts, 64, 81, 82, 87, 88, 
208, 209, 210-222, 224, 234, 
270, 272> 

Massachusetts Bureau of Sta- 
tistics of Labor, 50, 135 

^Massachusetts Homestead Com- 
mission, 19, 51, 61, 106, 158, 
185, 197, 208, 209-212, 213- 
222, 224, 230, 272, 291 

Mayor Collins' Commission 
(Boston), 214 

Mellen, James H., 209, 211 

Memphis, 53 

Metropolitan Association for 
Improving the Dwellings of 
the Industrial Qasses, 94, 158 



Metropolitan Board of Works 

(London), 141, 142 

Michigan, 125, 230 

Michigan Housing Commis- 
sion, 8 

Michigan Housing Law, 82, 
88 

Milan, 190, 191 

Milan, Savings Bank of, 191 

^lilanino, 190 

Mill, John Stuart, 251 

Mills Building, 100 

Mills, Ogden, 98 

Milwaukee, 81, 85 

Minister of Commerce and La- 
bor (Italy), 191 

l^linister of Finance (Den- 
mark), 194 

Alinistry of Agriculture, 192 

Ministry of Finance (Hun- 
gary), 192 

Minneapolis, 8, 11, 20, 58, 68, 
82, 88, 89, 232 

Minneapolis Civic and Com- 
merce Association, 10, 58, 89, 
285 

]\Iinnesota, Housing Law, 82, 
88 

IMinnesota Steel Company, 124 

Model Homes, Committee on 
Building, 48 

Model Housing in United 
States under Private Initia- 
tive, 91 

" Model Housing Law," 62, 64, 
89, 90 

Model Tenements, 94 

Moeschen Case, 79 

Montreal, 206 

" More Houses for Bridgeport," 
122 

]\Iorgan Park, 124 

Morton Grinding Company, 13 

Morton Street Area, Boston, 
246 



Index 



315 



Mount Union Refractories 
Company, 122 

Mulberry Bend Park, 39, 246 

Mulberry Street, 41 

Mullanphy Apartments, 93 

Mullanphy Emigrant & Travel- 
ers' Relief Fund, 93 

Municipal Dwellings for Wage 
Earners, 294, 295, 296 

" Municipal Government in 
Continental Europe," 171 

Munich, 176, 177 

Murphy, Commissioner John J., 
80 



Nantes, 186 

Naples, 23 

National Bank of Deposits 
(France), 187, 188 

National Child Labor Commit- 
tee, 127 

National Conference of Chari- 
ties and Correction, 10 

National Congress on Home 
Problems, after the War, 162 

National Homestead Act (of 
1862), 210, 262 

National Housing Association, 
5, 12, 13, 55, 57, 61, 80, 89, 
114, 120, 121, 131, 245, 279- 
281 

National Housing Commission, 
262-265, 271 

National Housing Conference 
(Fifth), 114, 280, 285 

National Housing Reform 
Council (England), 147 

National Legislation, 261-269 

National Old-Age Pension 
Fund, 187, 188 

Needs of Different Economic 
Groups, 275, 276 

Neighborhood Guild, 39 

Nelson, H. O., Manufacturing 



Company, Edwardsville, 111., 

119 

Nettlefold, J. S., 148-150 

Neuss (Germany), 184 

New Bedford, 218 

New Brunswick, 205 

Newburgh, N. Y., 58 

New Dwellings, Requirements 
for, 66 

New Haven, Improved Hous- 
ing Association of, 105 

New Jersey, 81, 83, 84, 230 

New Jersey Commission on Old- 
Age Insurance and Pensions, 

15 

Newman, Bernard J., 135, 284 

Newport News Shipbuilding 
Company, 4 

New South Wales, 202 

New York, 8, 20, 21, 23, 24, 29- 
45, 46, 48, 51, 55, (>Z, 66, 67, 
70, 71, 7Z, 7A, 75, 79, 80, 81, 
82, 84, 87, 89, 90, 91, 136, 230, 
231, 254, 275, 280 

New York Assoc'n for Improv- 
ing the Condition of the 
Poor, 31, 94, 98, 100 

New York Charity Organiza-^ 
tion Society, 113 

New York Daily Times, 34 

New York Legislative Commit- 
tee of 1857, 29, 31-35 

New York State Industrial 
Commission, 16 

New York Tenement House 
Act of 1879, 22, yy 

New York Tenement House 
Act of 1887, 9, 77, 113 

New York Tenement House 
Act of 1895, 77 

New York Tenement House 
Act of 1901, 43, 75, 77, 97 

New York Tenement House 
Commission of 1884, 38 

New York Tenement House 



3i6 



Index 



Commission of 1900, 7, 21, 22, 

42, 61, 62, 63, 77, 136 
New York Tenement House 

Committee of 1894, 39, 42, 77- 

78, 113, 136 
New York Tenement House 

Department, 22, 43, 44, 45, 62, 

75, 78, 79, 90, 97 
New Zealand, 51, 138, 197, 198, 

199, 202, 203, 224, 239, 243, 

251, 253, 266, 277, 290, 301, 

302, 304, 305 
"N. Z. Official Year Book for 

1915," 199, 201, 301 
Nolda, Mr., 228 
Nolen, John, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 

122, 130, 287 
Non-Commercial Housing Com- 
panies, 296, 297, 299 
Norfolk, Virginia, 107 
North Carolina, 230 
Norton Grinding Company, 120 
Norway, 193, 301, 304 
Nova Scotia, 205 
Nuremberg, 176 



Objections to Constructive 
Housing in the United States, 
238-256 

Octavia Hill Association of 
Philadelphia, iii, 283, 284 

Octavia Hill Enterprises, 109 

Octavia Hill Idea applied else- 
where, 112 

Office publique d'habitations a 
bon marche, 186 

Ohio, 230 

Oklahoma, 61, 209, 225, 226 

Oklahoma Home Ownership 
Loan Law, 225, 226 

Old-Age Insurance Institutes, 
165, 171, 183, 290 

Oldham Road Area, 158 

Olmstead, Frederick Law, 108 



"One Million People in Small 

Homes," 56 
Ontario, 205, 247, 248, 302, 303 
Organization Expenses, 299 
Other European Nations, South 

America and Cuba, 184 
Outline of a Comprehensive 

Housing Policy for the 

United States, 257 
Outline of a State Legislative 

Housing Program, 289-292 



Paine, Robert Treat, 96 

Paris, 186 

Paris, Tenements in, 134 

Parliament, 163 

Parrish, Helen, 56 

Peabody Donation Fund, 92 

Peabody Foundation, 158 

Peabody, George, 92 

Peabody Trust Fund, 136, 141 

Peace Dale Manufacturing 
Company, 115 

Peace Dale, Rhode Id., 115 

Pelzer Manufacturing Com- 
pany, 126 

Pelzer, South Carolina, 126 

Pennsylvania, 28, 80, 82, 115, 
125, 230 

Philadelphia, 8, 9, 10, 13, 55, 56, 
57, 71, 74, 80, 82, 83, 112, 135, 
254, 280 

Philadelphia Housing Associa- 
tion, 283, 284, 285 

Philadelphia Housing Commis- 
sion, 8, 56, 83, 112, 135, 229, 
232, 283 

Philadelphia Model Housing 
Company, 112 

Philanthropic Trust Funds, 92 

Philosophic Objection, The, 
251, 253 

Pinar del Rio, 197 

Pioneers, The, 140 ' 



Index 



317 



Pittsburgh, 7, 80 

Pittsburgh Chamber of Com- 
merce, 131 

Police Power, 243 

"Police Power, The," 242, 243 

Pollard Street Area, 158 

Pomerene, Atlee, 227, 293 

Port Sunlight, 14, 105, 109, 117, 
118, 147, 158, 160 

Portugal, 196 

Postal Savings Deposit Loans 
to Individual Workingmen, 
229, 266, 267, 269, 276 

" Practical Housing," 148 

" Practical Town Planning," 
148, 149 

President's Homes Commission, 
7, 48, 103, 227 

President of the United States, 
293 

Presumption in favor of Con- 
structive Housing in the 
United States, 238-240 

Private Association for Peo- 
ple's Dwellings of Milan, 
190 

Providence, 8, 12, 57, 114, 280 

Provident Society Act (Eng- 
land), 144 

Provost Marshal General's Re- 
port, 27, 28 

Prussian Decree of March 19, 
1901, 173 

Prussian Diet, 172 

Prussian Housing Fund, 173, 
290, 301, 302 

Public Health Acts (British), 
61, 141 

Ptiblic Welfare Housing Com- 
panies (Germany), 183 

Public Works Loan Commis- 
sioners, 140, 141, 144, 146, 150, 
263 

Pulling, Dr. E. R., 37 
Pullman, Illinois, 115, 116 



Pullman Palace Car Company, 

116 
Purdy, Lawson, 231 

Quebec, 205 

Quebec Housing Act, 206 
Queens, 42 
Queensland, 202, 203 

Railroad Wage Commission, 16 

Rapport du conseil superieur 
des habitations a bon marche, 
1913, 187; same for 1903- 
1913, 

Ratshof, 176 

References to Similar Provi- 
sions in Existing Statutes, 301- 

305 

Register of the Treasury of the 
United States, 294 

Restrictive Housing Legisla- 
tion, 18-26, 60, 260, 261, 290 

Results of Legislation (Bel- 
gian), 168 

Results of Legislation (Eng- 
land and Wales), 150 

Results of Legislation (Ger- 
many), 177 

Revere, 81 

Review of Labor Statistics, 124, 
125, 127 

Rhode Island, 51 

Richmond, 8, 53, 54, 135 

Riis, Jacob, 29, 30, 39, 58, 84, 
287 

Riverdale Courts, 206 

Riverside Buildings, 96, 97 

Rivington Street College Settle- 
ment, 41 

Robinson, Allan, 98 

Rockefeller Commission, 18 

Roebling, New Jersey, 121 

Roebling's Sons, John A., 121 

Rome, 191 

"Rookery" (N. Y. City), 36 



3i8 



Index 



Roosevelt, Theodore, 77 

Royal Commission on Housing 

of the Working Qasses, 142, 

147 
Royal Commission on Labor 

(Belgian), 164, 165 
Rumania, 195 

Rumbold, Charlotte, 54, 135 
Ruskin, no 

Russell Sage Foundation, 80 
Russia, 195 

St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 115 

St. Louis, 8, 54, 55, 57, 82, 119, 
135 

St. Paul, 8 

St. Vincent de Paul Society, 79 

Sacramento, 22s, 232 

Salem (Massachusetts), 217 

Saltus. Freeman M., 211 

San Diego, 223 

San Eugenio, 196 

San Francisco, 8, 20, 21, 51, 52, 
223, 233. 254 

San Francisco Housing Associ- 
ation, 52. 223, 284. 285 

Sanitar}^ Condition of Laboring 
Classes, 31 

Sanitarj' Housing Company, 
loi, 102 

Sanitary Improvement Com- 
pany, loi, 102 

Sanitation, 69 

San Juan Hill, 45 

Santa Clara. 197 

Santiago, 196 

Santiago province, 197 

Saxony, 174, 183 

Schmfdlapp Houses in Cincin- 
nati, 104 

Schmidlapp, Jacob G., 13, 104 

Scotch Education Department, 
161 

Scotland, 140 

Scranton, 80 



Self -Governing British Colo- 
nies, 197-208 

Seligman. Isaac N., 98 

Shaftesbury Act, 143 

Shaftesbury, Lord, 140 

Shaw, Albert, 171 

Shipping Board, 2^7 

Single-Family Houses. 105 

" Slums of Baltimore. Chicago, 
New York and Philadelphia, 
40-41 

Small Dwellings Acquisition 
Act (British), 61, 146, 200, 
290 

Smith. Adam, 251 

Smith-Hughes Vocational Edu- 
cational Act. 241 

Social Objection. The, 248-251 

Societes d'habitations a bon 
marche, 169. 185. 279 

Societies which Receive Loans 
and Build Houses. 175 

Society for the Improvement of 
Housing Conditions (Ger- 
man). 181 

South America. 60, 139 

South Australia, 202, 203 

Spain, 194, 195. 302. 305 

Sparrows Point, Mar>^land, 236 

Springfield (Massachusetts), 217 

Standard. American standard 
in Housing. 8-17 ; English 
standard in Housing, 11: Ger- 
man standard in Housing, 11 

Standards, adopted by the 
L^nited States Housing Cor- 
poration, 4 

State Advances Office, 199 

State Bank of Deposits (Italy), 
189 

State Educational Lands, 225 

State Housing and Town Plan- 
ning Commission, 269, 275, 
289-291 

State Housing Associations, 



Index 



319 



of Indiana, 281 ; of Iowa, 281 ; 
of New Jersey, 281 ; of Penn- 
sylvania, 281 
State Housing Commission, 

263, 272, 274, 275 
State Housing Fund, 271 
State Insurance Institute of the 
Rhenish Provinces, 181; same 
of Austria, 192 
State Legislation, 269-272 
State Loan Bank (Norway), 

193 
State or Municipal Housing, 

137 

Staten Island, 42 

States with Tenement House or 
Housing Laws, 80 

Sterling, Henry, 212, 214, 218, 
220 

Sternberg, Surgeon General 
George M., 13, loi, 102, 103, 
104, 227 

Stockholm, 194 

Stockton, 8, 224 

Stroud, A. T., 107, 108 

Summary of Money Expended, 
Houses Built, and Persons 
Housed, 183 

" Summary of the Report on 
the Condition of Woman and 
Child Wage Earners in the 
United States," 127 

Sunlight Code, 286 

Superintendent of Police, Wash- 
ington, 49 

Supreme Court of Massachu- 
setts, Opinion of, 213, 214 

Supreme Court of N. Y., 79 

Supreme Court of U. S., 79, 
242 

Survey, The, 49, 53, 56, 71, 178 

Sutton Housing Trust, The, 92 

Sweden, 194, 301, 304 

Switzerland, 195 

Syracuse, 83 



Tax Exemptions, 138, 146, 168, 

182, 187, 189, 192, 194, 195, 197 
Taylor, A. Merritt, 236 
Telegraph Hill, S. F., 52 
Tenement House Committee 

(Brooklyn), 283 
Tenement House Committee 

(New York), 283 
Tenement House Laws and 

Administration in New York, 

75 
" Tenement House Problem, 

The," 42 
Texas, 58, 230, 254 
Thompson, W., 148, 152, 154, 

iss, 157, 158 

Titus Town, Virginia, 107 

Toronto, 205, 206 

Torrance, California, 108, 109 

Torrens Act (England), 141, 
143 

Tournai (Belgium), 164 

Tower Buildings, 96, 97 

Town Planning and Rural De- 
velopment Act, 207 

Town Planning Association, 
156 

Town Planning Boards Estab- 
lished, 1913 (Massachusetts), 
215 

Town Planning Legislation in 
the United States, 229 

Treasurer of the United States, 
264, 294, 301 

Trenton, 84, 121 

Trinity Church Corporation, 9, 
38, 113, 114 

Trotsky, Leon, 23 

Troy, 83 

Turkey, 195 

Tuskegee and Hampton Estates, 
99 

Two-Flat Houses, loi 

"Two Years of the Home Hos- 
pital Experiment," 100 



320 



Index 



Ulm, 175, 177, 178, 302 

Undesirable Examples, 125 

United States, 43, 60, 61, 136, 
163, 164, 198 

U. S. Bureau of Labor Statis- 
tics, Bulletin, 142, 144, 155, 
158, 170, 172, 173, 174, 183. 
185, 189, 197, 202, 204, 218, 
229 

United States Housing Corpo- 
ration, 4, 235 

United States, Restrictive 
Housing Legislation in, 60 

United States Steel Corpora- 
tion, 124 

Utah, 230 



Vanderbilt, Mrs., 100 

Valuation Office (New Zea- 
land), 200 

Van Melle, Alfred, 170 

Veiller, Lawrence, 18, 24, 57, 
61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68. 75, 
76, 78, 80, 84, 95, 124, 261, 
279, 280, 281, 283, 287 

Veiller Model Law, The, 261, 
287, 290 

Venice, 189, 191 ; Savings Bank 
of, 190 

Verviers (Belgium), 164 

Victoria, Savings Bank Act 
(1890), 202, 203 

Viscose Company, 122 

Vivien, Henry, M. P., 149, 160 

Vocational Education Act, 263, 
270 

Von Wagner, Dr., 177, 178 



Wales, 140, 158 
Wales, Prince of, 142 
War Housing, 1-6 
War Housing by the Federal 
Government, 234-247 



Warner, Ralph B., 230 
Warren, S. D.. & Co., 115 
Washington, D. C, 7, 8, 23, 46, 

47, 48, 102, 104, 227, 228, 229, 

250 
Washington Sanitary Housing 

Company, 13, 14, 113 
Watrous. Richard R., 160, 176 
W^eber, Gustavus A., 53, 135 
Well Hall, 5 
Westerly Gardens, New Jersey, 

106, 107 
Western Australia, 202, 203 
"What is a House?" 162 
"What Our Cities Do Not 

Know," 55 
White, Alfred T., 37, 91, 96, 

97. 98, 99, 100, loi, 136 
White Hart Lane, Estate, 105 
W^hitten, Robert H., 231 
Williams, Rev. C. H., 105, 106 
Williamsport (Pennsylvania), 

130 
Williamsport Board of Trade, 

130 
Williamsport Improvement Com- 
pany, 130 
\Mlliamsport, Sawyer Park, 130 
Willimantic, Connecticut, 115 
Willimantic Linen Company, 

115 

Willoughby, W. P., 233 
Willow Tree Alley, 246 
Wilmington Housing Company, 

4 

Wisconsin, 81, 84 

" Woman and Child Wage 

Earners in the United States," 

127 
Women's Clubs, 282 
Women's IMunicipal League of 

Boston, 7, 50 
Woman's Welfare Department 

of the Civic Federation, 

Housing Committee of, 113 



Index 321 

Worcester, Mass., 13, 120 Wurttemberg, 174 

Workers' Dwellings Act (New 

Zealand), 201 York 147 

Workmen's Home Association, * 

94, 98 
"Workmen's Home" for col- Zoning and Districting in the 

ored tenants, 95 United States, 230 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OB" AMERICA 



*H£ following pages contain advertisements of a few 
of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. 



A NEW IDEA IN INDUSTRY 

The Shop GDmmittee 

A HAND-BOOK FOR EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES 

By WILLIAM LEAVITT STODDARD, A.B., A.M., 

Harvard 

Administrator for the National War Labor Board, 

1918-1919 

Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 
The Shop Committee is a new thing in industry. Here is 
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Table of Contents 

CHAPTER 

I — The Early Beginnings : History of the shop committee 
movement in this country and Great Britain with par- 
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and shop committees as a reconstruction measure. 
H — The War Labor Board Plan : Development of shop 
committees by the National War Labor Board, de- 
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in — General Principles : An analysis of the underlying 
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IV — The Basis of Representation: Discussion in detail 
and with practical illustrations of the districting or 
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employers and employees fall. 
V — The Lynn Plan : Shop Committee Scheme of the 
Lynn, Mass. Plant. (General Electric Co.) 

VI — Three Characteristic Plans : Describes plan installed 
in Pittsfield Machine and Tool Co., Pittsfield, Mass. 
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VII — Election Machinery: Similar to Chapter IV, a prac- 
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VIII— Procedure : Similar to IV and VH. 

IX — Shop Committees in Action: Stories and actual inci- 
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X — The Shop Committee and the Union: Important dis- 
cussion of this question with particular reference to 
whether the formation of shop committees promotes 
unions or not. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



A NEW RURAL MANUAL 
Edited by L. H. Bailey 

A Manual of Home-Making 

Compiled by 

MARTHA VAN RENSSELAER 
FLORA ROSE HELEN CANON 

OF THE 

Department of Home Economics, New York College of 
Agriculture at Cornell University 

Illustrated, cloth, 12°, $2.50 

This book is written primarily for women who are manag- 
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenne New York 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

New Ideals in Business 

By IDA TARBELL 

Author of " History of the Standard Oil Company," " Tariflf 
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Employment Psychology 

By henry C link 

Cloth, j^° 

An application of various psychological tests in the 
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Workmen's Compensation 

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This is an authentic history of the Workmen's Com- 
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The Labor Movement 

By harry F. ward 

Cloth, 12°, $1.3.5 

An attempt to present the essential facts concerning 

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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 







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